The JEWs Plan Is to Exterminate the White People – What Fricking Part Don't YOU Get?

CHAPTER 1
Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days
upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a man
child was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte. Forcing forth from
Binta’s strong young body, he was as black as she was,
flecked and slippery with Binta’s blood, and he was bawling.
The two wrinkled midwives, old Nyo Boto and the baby’s
Grandmother Yaisa, saw that it was a boy and laughed with
joy. According to the forefathers, a boy firstborn presaged the
special blessings of Allah not only upon the parents but also
upon the parents’ families; and there was the prideful
knowledge that the name of Kinte would thus be both
distinguished and perpetuated. It was the hour before the first
crowing of the cocks, and along with Nyo Boto and Grandma
Yaisa’s clatterings, the first sound the child heard was the
muted, rhythmic bompabompabomp of wooden pestles as the
other women of the village pounded couscous grain in their
mortars, preparing the traditional breakfast of porridge that
was cooked in earthen pots over a fire built among three
rocks. The thin blue smoke went curling up, pungent and
pleasant, over the small dusty village of round mud huts as the
nasal wailing of Kajali Demba, the village alimamo, began,
calling men to the first of the five daily prayers that had been
offered up to Allah for as long as anyone living could
remember. Hastening from their beds of bamboo cane and
cured hides into their rough cotton tunics, the men of the
village filed briskly to the praying place, where the alimamo
led the worship: “Allahu Akbar! Ashadu an lailahailala!” (God
is great! I bear witness that there is only one God! It was after
this, as the men were returning toward their home compounds
for breakfast, that Omoro rushed among them, beaming and
excited, to tell them of his firstborn son. Congratulating him, all
of the men echoed the omens of good fortune. Each man,
back in his own hut, accepted a calabash of porridge from his
wife. Returning to their kitchens in the rear of the compound,
the wives fed next their children, and finally themselves. When
they had finished eating, the men took up their short, benthandled
hoes, whose wooden blades had been sheathed with
metal by the village blacksmith, and set off for their day’s work
of preparing the land for farming of the ground nuts and the
couscous and cotton that were the primary men’s crops, as
rice was that of the women, in this hot, lush savanna country of
The Gambia. By ancient custom, for the next seven days,
there was bui a. singic task with which Omoro would seriously
occupy himself: the selection of a name for his firstborn son. It
would have to be a name rich with history and with promise,
for the people of his tribe–the Mandinkas–believed that a
child would develop seven of the characteristics of whomever
or whatever he was named for. On behalf of himself and Binta,
during this week of thinking, Omoro visited every household in
Juffure, and invited each family to the naming ceremony of the
newborn child, traditionally on the eighth day of his life. On that
day, like his father and his father’s father, this new son would
become a member of the tribe. When the eighth day arrived,
the villagers gathered in the early morning before the hut of
Omoro and Binta. On their heads, the women of both families
brought calabash containers of ceremonial sour milk and
sweet munko cakes of pounded rice and honey. Karamo Silla,
the jaliba of the village, was there with his tan-tang drums; and
the alimamo, and the arafang, Brima Cesay, who would some
day be the child’s teacher; and also Omoro’s two brothers,
Janneh and Saloum, who had journeyed from far away to
attend the ceremony when the drum talk news of their
nephew’s birth had reached them. As Binta proudly held her
new infant, a small patch of his first hair was shaved off, as
was always done on this day, and all of the women exclaimed
at how well formed the baby was. Then they quieted as the
jaliba/began to beat his drums. The alimamo said a prayer
over the calabashes of sour milk and munko cakes, and as he
prayed, each guest touched a calabash brim with his or her
right hand, as a gesture of respect for the food. Then the
alimamo turned to pray over the infant, entreating Allah to
grant him long life, success in bringing credit and pride and
many children to his family, to his village, to his tribe–and,
finally, the strength and the spirit to deserve and to bring honor
to the name he was about to receive. Omoro then walked out
before all of the assembled people of the village. Moving to
his wife’s side, he lifted up the infant and, as all watched,
whispered three times into his son’s ear the name he had
chosen for him. It was the first time the name had ever been
spoken as this child’s name, for Omoro’s people felt that each
human being should be the first to know who he was. The tantang
drum resounded again; and now Omoro whispered the
name into the ear of Binta, and Binta smiled with pride and
pleasure. Then Omoro whispered the name to the arafang,
who stood before the villagers. “The first child of Omoro and
Binta Kinte is named Kunta!” cried Brima Cesay. As everyone
knew, it was the middle name of the child’s late grandfather,
Kairaba Kunta Kinte, who had come from his native
Mauretania into The Gambia, where he had saved the people
of Juffure from a famine, married Grandma Yaisa, and then
served Juffure honorably till his death as the village’s holy
man. One by one, the arafang recited the names of the
Mauretanian forefathers of whom the baby’s grandfather, old
Kairaba Kinte, had often told. The names, which were great
and many, went back more than two hundred rains. Then the
jaliba pounded on his tan-tang and all of the people exclaimed
their admiration and respect at such a distinguished lineage.
Out under the moon and the stars, alone with his son that
eighth night, Omoro completed the naming ritual. Carrying
little Kunta in his strong arms, he walked to the edge of the
village, lifted his baby up with his face to the heavens, and
said softly, “Fend kiting dorong leh warrata ka iteh tee.”
(Behold–the only thing greater than yourself.
CHAPTER 2
It was the planting season, and the first rains were soon to
come. On all their farming land, the men of Juffure had piled
tall stacks of dry weeds and set them afire so that the light
wind would nourish the soil by scattering the ashes. And the
women in their rice fields were already planting green shoots
in the mud. While she was recovering from childbirth, Binta’s
rice plot had been attended by Grandma Yaisa, but now Binta
was ready to resume her duties. With Kunta cradled across
her back in a cotton sling, she walked with the other women–
some of them, including her friend Jankay Tou- ray, carrying
their own newborns, along with the bundles they all balanced
on their heads–to the dugout canoes on the bank of the village
belong, one of the many tributary canals that came twisting
inland from the Gambia River, known as the Kamby Bolongo.
The canoes went skimming down the belong with five or six
women in each one, straining against their short, broad
paddles. Each time Binta bent forward to dip and pull, she felt
Kunta’s warm softness pressing against her back. The air was
heavy with the deep, musky fragrance of the mangroves, and
with the perfumes of the other plants and trees that grew
thickly on both sides of the belong. Alarmed by the passing
canoes, huge families of baboons, roused from sleep, began
bellowing, springing about and shaking palm-tree fronds. Wild
pigs grunted and snorted, running to hide themselves among
the weeds and bushes. Covering the muddy banks, thousands
of pelicans, cranes, egrets, herons, storks, gulls, terns, and
spoonbills interrupted their breakfast feeding to watch
nervously as the canoes glided by. Some of the smaller birds
took to the air–ring- doves, skimmers, rails, darters, and
kingfishers–circling with shrill cries until the intruders had
passed. As the canoes arrowed through rippling, busy
patches of water, schools of minnows would leap up together,
perform a silvery dance, and then splash back. Chasing the
minnows, sometimes so hungrily that they flopped right into a
moving canoe, were large, fierce fish that the women would
club with their paddles and stow away for a succulent evening
meal. But this morning the minnows swam around them
undisturbed. The twisting belong took the rowing women
around a turn into a wider tributary, and as they came into
sight, a great beating of wings filled the air and a vast living
carpet of seafowl-yhundreds of thousands of them, in every
color of the rainbow–rose and filled the sky. The surface of the
water, darkened by the storm of birds and furrowed by their
napping wings, was flecked with feathers as the women
paddled on. As they neared the marshy faros where
generations of Juffure women had grown their rice crops, the
canoes passed through swarming clouds of mosquitoes and
then, one after another, nosed in against a walkway of thickly
matted weeds. The weeds bounded and identified each
woman’s plot, where by now the emerald shoots of young rice
stood a hand’s height above the water’s surface. Since the
size of each woman’s plot was decided each year by Juffure’s
Council of Elders, according to how many mouths each
woman had to feed with rice, Binta’s plot was still a small one.
Balancing herself carefully as she stepped from the canoe
with her new baby, Binta took a few steps” and then stopped
short, looking with surprise and delight at a tiny thatch-roofed
bamboo hut on stilts. While she was in labor, Omoro had
come here and built it as a shelter for their son. Typical of
men, he had said nothing about it. Nursing the baby, then
nestling him inside his shelter, Binta changed into the working
clothes she had brought in the bundle on her head, and waded
out to work. Bending nearly double in the water, she pulled up
by the roots the young weeds that, left alone, would outgrow
and choke the rice crop. And whenever Kunta cried, Binta
waded out, dripping water, to nurse him again in the shadow
of his shelter. Little Kunta basked thus every day in his
mother’s tenderness. Back in her hut each evening, after
cooking and serving Omoro’s dinner, Binta would soften her
baby’s skin by greasing him from head to toe with shea tree
butter, and then–more often than not–she would carry him
proudly across the village to the hut of Grandma Yaisa, who
would bestow upon the baby still more cluckings and kissings.
And both of them would set little Kunta to whimpering in
irritation with their repeated pressings of his little head, nose,
ears, and lips, to shape them correctly. Sometimes Omoro
would take his son away from the women and carry the
blanketed bundle to his own hut–husbands always resided
separately from their wives–where he would let the child’s
eyes and fingers explore such attractive objects as the sap
hie charms at the head of Omoro’s bed, placed there to ward
off evil spirits. Anything colorful intrigued little Kunta-especially
his father’s leather huntsman’s bag, nearly covered by now
with cowrie shells, each for an animal that Omoro had
personally brought in as food for the village. And Kunta cooed
over the long, curved bow and quiver of arrows hanging
nearby. Omoro smiled when a tiny hand reached out and
grasped the dark, slender spear whose shaft was polished
from so much use. He let Kunta touch everything except the
prayer rug, which was sacred to its owner. And alone together
in his hut, Omoro would talk to Kunta of the fine and brave
deeds his son would do when he grew up. Finally he would
return Kunta to Binta’s hut for the next nursing. Wherever he
was, Kunta was happy most of the time, and he always fell
asleep either with Binta rocking him on her lap or bending
over him on her bed, singing softly such a lullaby as, My
smiling child, Named for a noble ancestor. Great hunter or
warrior You will be one day, Which will give your papa pride.
But always I will remember you thus. However much Binta
loved her baby and her husband, she also felt a very real
anxiety, for Moslem husbands, by ancient custom, would often
select and marry a second wife during that time when their
first wives had babies still nursing. As yet Omoro had taken no
other wife; and since Binta didn’t want him tempted, she felt
that the sooner little Kunta was able to walk alone, the better,
for that was when the nursing would end. So Binta was quick
to help him as soon as Kunta, at about thirteen moons, tried
his first unsteady steps. And. before long, he was able to
toddle about without an assisting hand. Binta was as relieved
as Omoro was proud, and when Kunta cried for his next
feeding, Binta gave her son not a breast but a sound spanking
and a gourd of cow’s milk.
CHAPTER 3
Three rains had passed, and it was that lean season when the
village’s store of grain and other dried foods from the last
harvest was almost gone. The men had hunted, but they had
returned with only a few small antelopes and gazelle and
some clumsy bush fowl for in this season of burning sun, so
many of the savanna’s water holes had dried into mud that the
bigger and better game had moved into deep forest–at the
very time when the people of Juffure needed all their strength
to plant crops for the new harvest. Already, the wives were
stretching their staple meals of couscous and rice with the
tasteless seeds of bamboo cane and with the bad-tasting
dried leaves of the baobab tree. The days of hunger had
begun so early that five goats and two bullocks–more than last
time–were sacrificed to strengthen everyone’s prayers that
Allah might spare the village from starvation. Finally the hot
skies clouded, the light breezes became brisk winds and,
abruptly as always, the little rains began, falling warmly and
gently as the farmers hoed the softened earth into long,
straight rows in readiness for the seeds. They knew the
planting must be done before the big rains came. The next
few mornings, after breakfast, instead of canoeing to their rice
fields, the farmers’ wives dressed in the traditional fertility
costumes of large fresh leaves, symbolizing the green of
growing things, and set out for the furrowed fields of the men.
Their voices would be heard rising and falling even before
they appeared as they chanted ancestral prayers that the
couscous and ground nuts and other seeds in the earthen
bowls balanced on their heads would take strong roots and
grow. With their bare feet moving in step, the line of women
walked and sang three times around every farmer’s field. Then
they separated, and each woman fell in behind a farmer as he
moved along each row, punching a hole in the earth every few
inches with his big toe. Into each hole a woman dropped a
seed, covered it over with her own big toe, and then moved
on. The women worked even harder than the men, for they not
only had to help their husbands but also tend both the rice
fields and the vegetable gardens they cultivated near their
kitchens. While Binta planted her onions, yams, gourds,
cassava, and bitter tomatoes, little Kunta spent his days
romping under the watchful eyes of the several old
grandmothers who took care of all the children of Juffure who
belonged to the first kafo, which included those under five
rains in age. The boys and girls alike scampered about as
naked as young animals–some of them just beginning to say
their first words. All, like Kunta, were growing fast, laughing
and squealing as they ran after each other around the giant
trunk of the village baobab, played hide-and-seek, and
scattered the dogs and chickens into masses of fur and
feathers. But all the children–even those as small as Kunta–
would quickly scramble to sit still and quiet when the telling of
a story was promised by one of the old grandmothers. Though
unable yet to understand many of the words, Kunta would
watch with wide eyes as the old women acted out their stories
with such gestures and noises that they really seemed to be
happening. As little as he was, Kunta was already familiar with
some of the stories that his own Grandma Yaisa had told to
him alone when he had been visiting in her hut. But along with
his first-kafo playmates, he felt that the best story-teller of all
was the beloved, mysterious, and peculiar old Nyo Boto. Baldheaded,
deeply wrinkled, as black as the bottom of a cooking
pot, with her long lemongrass-root chew stick sticking out like
an insect’s feeler between the few teeth she had left–which
were deep orange from the countless kola nuts she had
gnawed on–old Nyo Boto would settle herself with much
grunting on her low stool. Though she acted gruff, the children
knew that she loved them as if they were her own, which she
claimed they all were.
Surrounded by them, she would growl,
“Let me tell a story…” “Please!” the children would chorus,
wriggling in anticipation. And she would begin in the way that
all Mandinka story-tellers began: “At this certain time, in this
certain village, lived this certain person.” It was a small boy,
she said, of about their rains, who walked to the riverbank one
day and found a crocodile trapped in a net. “Help me!” the
crocodile cried out. “You’ll kill me!” cried the boy. “No! Come
nearer!” said the crocodile. So the boy went up to the
crocodile–and instantly was seized by the teeth in that long
mouth. “Is this how you repay my goodness–with badness?”
cried the boy. “Of course,” said the crocodile out of the corner
of his mouth. “That is the way of the world.” The boy refused to
believe that, so the crocodile agreed not to swallow him
without getting an opinion from the first three witnesses to
pass by. First was an old donkey. When the boy asked his
opinion, the donkey said, “Now that I’m old and can no longer
work, my master has driven me out for the leopards to get
me!” “See?” said the crocodile. Next to pass by was an old
horse, who had the same opinion. “See?” said the crocodile.
Then along came a plump rabbit who said, “Well, I can’t give a
good opinion without seeing this matter as it happened from
the beginning.” Grumbling, the crocodile opened his mouth to
tell him–and the boy jumped out to safety on the riverbank.
“Do you like crocodile meat?” asked the rabbit. The boy said
yes. “And do your parents?” He said yes again. “Then here is
a crocodile ready for the pot.” The boy ran off and returned
with the men of the village, who helped him to kill the
crocodile. But they brought with them a wuolo dog, which
chased and caught and killed the rabbit, too. “So the
crocodile was right,” said Nyo Boto. “It is the way of the world
that goodness is often repaid with badness. This is what I
have told you as a story.” “May you be blessed, have strength
and pros peri said the children gratefully. Then the other
grandmothers would pass among the children with bowls of
freshly toasted beetles and grasshoppers. These would have
been only tasty tidbits at another time of year, but now, on the
eve of the big rains, with the hungry season already beginning,
the toasted insects had to serve as a noon meal, for only a
few handfuls of couscous and rice remained in most families’
storehouses.
CHAPTER 4
Fresh, brief showers fell almost every morning now, and
between the showers Kunta and his playmates would dash
about excitedly outside. “Mine! Mine!” they would shout at the
pretty rainbows that would arc down to the earth, seeming
never very far away. But the showers also brought swarms of
flying insects whose vicious stinging and biting soon drove the
children back indoors. Then, suddenly, late one night, the big
rains began, and the people huddled inside their cold huts
listening to the water pound on their thatch roofs, watching the
lightning flash and comforting their children as the frightening
thunder rumbled through the night. Between cloudbursts, they
heard only the barking of the jackals, the howling of the
hyenas, and the croaking of the frogs. The rains came again
the next night, and the next, and the next–and only at night–
flooding the lowlands near the river, turning their fields into a
swamp and their village into a mud hole Yet each morning
before breakfast, all the farmers struggled through the mud to
Juffure’s little mosque and implored Allah to send still more
rain, for life itself depended upon enough water to soak
deeply into the earth before the hot suns arrived, which would
wither those crops whose roots could not find enough water to
survive. In the damp nursery hut, dimly lighted and poorly
heated by the burning dry sticks and cattle-dung patties in the
earthen floor’s shallow fire hole old Nyo Boto told Kunta and
the other children of the terrible time she remembered when
there were not enough big rains. No matter how bad anything
was, Nyo Boto would always remember a time when it was
worse. After two days of big rain, she told them, the burning
suns had come. Although the people prayed very hard to Allah,
and danced the ancestral rain dance, and sacrificed two
goats and a bullock every day, still everything growing in the
ground began to parch and die. Even the forest’s water holes
dried up, said Nyo Boto, and first wild fowl, and then the
forest’s animals, sick from thirst, began to appear at the
village well. In crystal-clear skies each night, thousands of
bright stars shone, and a cold wind blew, and more and more
people grew ill. Clearly, evil spirits were abroad in Juffure.
Those who were able continued their prayers and their
dances, and finally the last goat and bullock had been
sacrificed. It was as if Allah had turned His back on Juffure.
Some–the old and the weak and the sick–began to die.
Others left town, seeking another village to beg someone who
had food to accept them as slaves, just to get something into
their bellies, and those who stayed behind lost their spirit and
lay down in their huts. It was then, said Nyo Boto, that Allah
had guided the steps of mar about Kairaba Kunta Kinte into
the starving village of Juffure. Seeing the people’s plight, he
kneeled down and prayed to Allah–almost without sleep and
taking only a few sips of water as nourishment–for the next
five days. And on the evening of the fifth day came a great
rain, which fell like a flood, and saved Juffure. When she
finished her story, the other children looked with new respect
at Kunta, who bore the name of that distinguished grandfather,
husband of Kunta’s Grandma Yaisa. Even before now, Kunta
had seen how the parents of the other children acted toward
Yaisa, and he had sensed that she was an important woman,
just as old Nyo Boto surely was. The big rains continued to fall
every night until Kunta and the other children began to see
grownups wading across the village in mud up to their ankles
and even to their knees, and even using canoes to paddle
from place to place. Kunta had heard Binta tell Omoro that the
rice fields were flooded in the bolong’s high waters. Cold and
hungry, the children’s fathers sacrificed precious goats and
bullocks to Allah almost every day, patched leaking roofs,
shored up sagging huts–and prayed that their disappearing
stock of rice and couscous would last until the harvest. But
Kunta and the others, being yet little children, paid less
attention to the hunger pangs in their bellies than to playing in
the mud, wrestling each other and sliding on their naked
bottoms. Yet in their longing to see the sun again, they would
wave up at the slate-colored sky and shout–as they had seen
their parents do”–Shine, sun, and I will kill you a goat!” The
life-giving rain had made every growing thing fresh and
luxuriant. Birds sang everywhere. The trees and plants were
explosions of fragrant blossoms. The reddish-brown, clinging
mud underfoot was newly carpeted each morning, with the
bright-colored petals and green leaves beaten loose by the
rain of the night before. But amid all the lushness of nature,
sickness spread steadily among the people of Juffure, for
none of the richly growing crops was ripe enough to eat. The
adults and children alike would stare hungrily at the thousands
of plump mangoes and monkey apples hanging heavy on the
trees, but the green fruits were as hard as rocks, and those
who bit into them fell ill and vomited. “Nothing but skin and
bones!” Grandma Yaisa would exclaim, making a loud
clicking noise with her tongue every time she saw Kunta. But
in fact his grandma was almost as thin as he; for every
storehouse in Juffure was now completely empty. What few of
the village’s cattle and goats and chickens had not been eaten
or sacrificed had to be kept alive–and fed–if there was to be
a next year’s crop of kids and calves and baby chicks. So the
people began to eat rodents, roots, and leaves foraged from
in and around the village on searchings that began when the
sun rose and ended when it set. If the men had gone to the
forests to hunt wild game, as they frequently did at other times
of the year, they wouldn’t have had the strength to drag it back
to the village. Tribal taboos forbade the Mandinkas to eat the
abounding monkeys and baboons; nor would they touch the
many hens’ eggs that lay about, or the millions of big green
bullfrogs that Mandinkas regarded as poisonous. And as
devout Moslems, they would rather have died than eat the
flesh of the wild pigs that often came rooting in herds right
through the village. For ages, families of cranes had nested in
the topmost branches of the village’s silk-cotton tree, and
when the young hatched, the big cranes shuttled back and
forth bringing fish, which they had just caught in the belong, to
feed their babies. Watching for the right moment, the
grandmothers and the children would rush beneath the tree,
whooping and hurling small sticks and stones upward at the
nest. And often, in the noise and confusion, a young crane’s
gaping mouth would miss the fish, and the fish would miss the
nest and come slapping down-among the tall tree’s thick
foliage to the ground. The children would struggle over the
prize, and someone’s family would have a feast for dinner. If
one of the stones thrown up by the children happened to hit a
gawky, pin-feathered young crane, it would sometimes fall
from the high nest along with the fish, killing or injuring itself in
the crash against the ground; and that night a few families
would have crane soup. But such meals were rare. By the late
evening, each family would meet back at their hut, bringing
whatever each individual had found–perhaps even a mole or
a handful of large grub worms if they were lucky–for that
night’s pot of soup, heavily peppered and spiced to improve
the taste. But such fare filled their bellies without bringing
nourishment. And so it was that the people of Juffure began to
die.
CHAPTER 5
More and more often now, the high-pitched howling of a
woman would be heard throughout the village. The fortunate
were those babies and toddlers yet too young to understand,
for even Kunta was old enough to know that the howling meant
a loved one had just died. In the afternoons, usually, some sick
farmer who had been out cutting weeds in his field would be
carried back to the village on a bullock’s hide, lying very still.
And disease had begun to swell the legs of some adults. Yet
others developed fevers with heavy perspiration and trembling
chills. And among all the children, small areas on their arms or
tegs would puff up, rapidly grow larger and painfully sore; then
the puffed areas would split, leaking a pinkish fluid that soon
became a full, yellow, stinking pus that drew buzzing flies. The
hurting of the big open sore on Kunta’s leg made him stumble
while trying to run one day. Falling hard, he was picked up by
his playmates, stunned and yelling, with his forehead
bleeding. Since Binta and Omoro were away farming, they
rushed him to the hut of Grandma Yaisa, who for a number of
days now had not appeared in the nursery hut. She looked
very weak, her black face gaunt and drawn, and she was
sweating under her bullock hide on her bamboo pallet. But
when she saw Kunta, she sprang up to wipe his bleeding
forehead. Embracing him tightly, she ordered the other
children to run and bring her some kelelalu ants. When they
returned. Grandma Yaisa tightly pressed together the skin’s
split edges, then pressed one struggling driver ant after
another against the wound. As each ant angrily clamped its
strong pincers into the flesh on each side of the cut, she deftly
snapped off its body, leaving the head in place, until the
wound was stitched together. Dismissing the other children,
she told Kunta to lie down and rest alongside her on the bed.
He lay and listened to her labored breathing as she remained
silent for some time. Then Grandma Yaisa’s hand gestured
toward a pile of books on the shelf beside her bed. Speaking
slowly, and softly, she told Kunta more about his grandfather,
whose books she said those were. In his native country of
Mauretania, Kairaba Kunta Kinte had thirty-five rains of age
v/hen his teacher, a master mar about gave him the blessing
that made him a holy man, said Grandma Yaisa. Kunta’s
grandfather had followed a family tradition of holy men that
dated back many hundreds of rains into Old Mali. As a man of
the fourth kafo, he had begged the old mar about to accept
him as a student, and for the next fifteen rains had traveled
with his party of wives, slaves, students, cattle and goats as
he pilgrim aged from village to village in the service of Allah
and his subjects. Over dusty foot trails and muddy creeks,
under hot suns and cold rains, through green valleys and
windy wastelands, said Grandma Yaisa, they had trekked
southward from Mauretania. Upon receiving his ordination as
a holy man, Kairaba Kunta Kinte had himself wandered for
many moons alone, among places in Old Mali such as Keyla,
Djeela, Kangaba, and Timbuktu, humbly prostrating himself
before very great old holy men and imploring their blessings
for his success, which they all freely gave. And Allah then
guided the young holy man’s footsteps in a southerly direction,
finally to The Gambia, where he stopped first in the village of
Pakali N’Ding. In a short while, the people of this village knew,
by the quick results from his prayers, that this young holy man
had upon him Allah’s special favor. Talking drums spread the
news, and soon other villages tried to lure him away, sending
messengers with offers of prime maidens for wives, and
slaves and cattle and goats. And before long he did move, this
time to the village of Jiffarong, but only because Allah had
called him there, for the people of Jiffarong had little to offer
him but their gratitude for his prayers. It was here that he
heard of the village of Juffure, where people were sick and
dying for lack of a big rain. And so at last he came to Juffure,
said Grandma Yaisa, where for five days, ceaselessly, he had
prayed until Allah sent down the big rain that saved the village.
Learning of Kunta’s grandfather’s great deed, the King of
Barra himself, who ruled this part of The Gambia, personally
presented a choice virgin for the young holy man’s first wife,
and her name was Sireng. By Sireng, Kairaba Kunta Kinte
begot two sons–and he named them Janneh and Saloum. By
now, Grandma Yaisa had sat up on her bamboo pallet. “It was
then,” she said with shining eyes, “that he saw Yaisa, dancing
the seoruba! My age was fifteen rains! ” She smiled widely,
showing her toothless gums. “He needed no king to choose
his next wife!” She looked at Kunta. “It was from my belly that
he begot your papa Omoro.” That night, back in his mother’s
hut, Kunta lay awake for a long time, thinking of the things
Grandma Yaisa had told him. Many times, Kunta had heard
about the grandfather holy man whose prayers had saved the
village, and whom later Allah had taken back. But Kunta had
never truly understood until now that this man was his father’s
father, that Omoro had known him as he knew Omoro, that
Grandma Yaisa was Omoro’s mother as Binta was his own.
Some day, he too would find a woman such as Binta to bear
him a son of his own. And that son, in turn… Turning over and
closing his eyes, Kunta followed these deep thoughts slowly
into sleep.
CHAPTER 6
Just before sundown for the next few days, after returning from
the rice field, Binta would send Kunta to the village well for a
calabash of fresh water, which she would use to boil a soup
from whatever scraps she could find. Then she and Kunta
would take some of the soup across the village to Grandma
Yaisa. Binta moved more slowly than usual, it seemed to
Kunta, and he noticed that her belly was very big and heavy.
While Grandma Yaisa protested weakly that she would soon
feel well again, Binta would clean up the hut and arrange
things. And they would leave Grandma Yaisa propped up on
her bed, eating a bowl of soup along with some of Binta’s
hungry-season bread, made from the yellow powder that
covered the dry black beans of the wild locust tree. Then one
night, Kunta awakened to find himself being shaken roughly by
his father. Binta was making low, moaning sounds on her bed,
and also within the hut, moving quickly about, were Nyo Boto
and Binta’s friend Jankay Touray. Omoro hurried across the
village with Kunta, who, wondering what all of this was about,
soon drifted back to sleep on his father’s bed. In the morning,
Omoro again awakened Kunta and said, “You have a new
brother.” Scrambling sleepily onto his knees and rubbing his
eyes, Kunta thought it must be something very special to so
please his usually stern father. In the afternoon, Kunta was with
his kafo mates, looking for things to eat, when Nyo Boto called
him and took him to see Binta. Looking very tired, she sat on
the edge of her bed gently caressing the baby in her lap.
Kunta stood a moment studying the little wrinkly black thing;
then he looked at the two women smiling at it, and he noticed
that the familiar bigness of Binta’s stomach was suddenly
gone. Going back outside without a word, Kunta stood for a
long moment and then, instead of rejoining his friends, went
off to sit by himself behind his father’s hut and think about what
he had seen. Kunta continued sleeping in Omoro’s but for the
next seven nights–not that anyone seemed to notice or care,
in their concern for the new baby. He was beginning to think
that his mother didn’t want him any more–or his father, either–
until, on the evening of the eighth day, Omoro called him
before his mother’s hut, along with everyone else in Juffure
who was physically able, to hear the new baby given his
chosen name, which was Lamin. That night Kunta slept
peacefully and well–back in his own bed beside his mother
and his new brother. But within a few days, as soon as her
strength had returned, Binta began to take the baby, after
cooking and serving something for Omoro’s and Kunta’s
breakfast, and spent most of each day in the hut of Grandma
Yaisa. From the worried expressions that both Binta and
Omoro wore, Kunta knew that Grandma Yaisa was very sick.
Late one afternoon, a few days later, he and his kafo mates
were out picking mangoes, which had finally ripened. Bruising
the tough, orange-yellow skin against the nearest rock, they
would bite open one plump end to squeeze and suck out the
soft sweet flesh within. They were collecting basketfuls of
monkey apples and wild cashew nuts when Kunta suddenly
heard the howling of a familiar voice from the direction of his
grandma’s hut. A chill shot. through him, for it was the voice of
his mother, raised in the death wail that he had heard so often
in recent weeks. Other women immediately joined in a
keening cry that soon spread all the way across the village.
Kunta ran blindly toward his grandmother’s hut. Amid the
milling confusion, Kunta saw an anguished Omoro and a
bitterly weeping old Nyo Boto. Within moments, the tobalo
drum was being beaten and the jaliba was loudly crying out
the good deeds of Grandma Yaisa’s long life in Juffure. Numb
with shock, Kunta stood watching blankly as the young
unmarried women of the village beat up dust from the ground
with wide fans of plaited grass, as was the custom on the
occasion of a death. No one seemed to notice Kunta. As
Binta and Nyo Boto and two other shrieking women entered
the hut, the crowd outside fell to their knees and bowed their
heads. Kunta burst suddenly into tears, as much in fear as in
grief. Soon men came with a large, freshly split log and set it
down in front of the hut. Kunta watched as the women brought
out and laid on the log’s flat surface the body of his
grandmother, enclosed from her neck to her feet in a white
cotton winding cloth. Through his tears, Kunta saw the
mourners walk seven circles around Yaisa, praying and
chanting as the alimamo wailed that she was journeying to
spend eternity with Allah and her ancestors. To give her
strength for that journey, young unmarried men tenderly placed
cattle horns filled with fresh ashes all around her body. After
most of the mourners had filed away, Nyo Boto and other old
women took up posts nearby, huddling and weeping and
squeezing their heads with their hands. Soon, young women
brought the biggest ciboa leaves that could be found, to
protect the old women’s heads from rain through their vigil.
And as the old women sat, the village drums talked about
Grandma Yaisa far into the night. In the misty morning,
according to the custom of the forefathers, only the men of
Juffure those who were able to walk joined the procession to
the burying place, not far past the village, where otherwise
none would go, out of the Mandinkas’ fearful respect for the
spirits of their ancestors. Behind the men who bore Grandma
Yuisa on the log came Omoro, carrying the infant Lamin and
holding the hand of little Kunta, who was too frightened to cry.
And behind them came the other men of the village. The stiff,
white-wrapped body was lowered into the freshly dug hole,
and over her went a thick woven cane mat. Next were thorn
bushes, to keep out the digging hyenas, and the rest of the
hole was packed tight with stones and a mound of fresh earth.
Afterward, for many days, Kunta hardly ate or slept, and he
would not go anywhere with his kafo mates. So grieved was
he that Omoro, one evening, took him to his own hut, and
there beside his bed, speaking to his son more softly and
gently than he ever had before, told him something that helped
to ease his grief. He said that three groups of people lived in
every village. First were those you could see walking around,
eating, sleeping, and working. Second were the ancestors,
whom Grandma Yaisa had now joined. “And the third people
who are they?” asked Kunta. “The third people,” said Omoro,
“are those waiting to be born.”
CHAPTER 7
The rains had ended, and between the bright blue sky and the
damp earth, the air was heavy with the fragrance of lush wild
blooms and fruits. The early mornings echoed with the sound
of the women’s mortars pounding millet and couscous and
ground nuts–not from the main harvest, but from those earlygrowing
seeds that the past year’s harvest had left living in the
soil. The men hunted, bringing back fine, plump antelope, and
after passing out the meat, they scraped and cured the hides.
And the women busily collected the ripened reddish
mangkano berries, shaking the bushes over cloths spread
beneath, then drying the berries in the sun before pounding
them to separate the delicious futo flour from the seeds.
Nothing was wasted. Soaked and boiled with pounded millet,
the seeds were cooked into a sweetish breakfast gruel that
Kunta and everyone else welcomed as a seasonal change of
diet from their usual morning meal of couscous porridge. As
food became more plentiful each day, new life flowed 1} into
Juffure in ways that could be seen and heard. The men began
to walk more briskly to and from their farms, pride- fully
inspecting their bountiful crops, which would soon be ready for
harvesting. With the flooded river now subsiding rapidly, the
women were rowing daily to the faro and pulling out the last of
the weeds from among the tall, green rows of rice. And the
village rang again with the yelling and laughing of the children
back at play after the long hungry season. Bellies now filled
with nourishing food, sores dried into scabs and falling away,
they dashed and frolicked about as if possessed. One day
they would capture some big scarab dung beetles, line them
up for a race, and cheer the fastest to run outside a circle
drawn in the dirt with a stick. Another day, Kunta and Sitafa
Silla, his special friend, who lived in the hut next to Binta’s,
would raid a tall earth mound to dig up the blind, wingless
termites that lived inside, and watch them pour out by the
thousands and scurry frantically to get away. Sometimes the
boys would rout out little ground squirrels and chase them into
the bush. And they loved nothing better than to hurl stones arid
shouts at passing schools of small, brown, long-tailed
monkeys, some of which would throw a stone back before
swinging up to join their screeching brothers in the topmost
branches of a tree. And every day the boys would wrestle,
grabbing each other, sprawling down, grunting, scrambling,
and springing up to start all over again, each one dreaming of
the day when he might become one of Juffure’s champion
wrestlers and be chosen to wage mighty battles with the
champions of other villages during the harvest festivals. Adults
passing anywhere near the children would solemnly pretend
not to see nor hear as Sitafa, Kunta, and the rest of their kafo
growled and roared like lions, trumpeted like elephants, and
grunted like wild pigs, or as the girls–cooking and tending
their dolls and beating their couscous–played mothers and
wives among themselves. But however hard they were
playing, the children never failed to pay every adult the respect
their mothers had taught them to show always toward their
elders. Politely looking the adults in the eyes, the children
would ask, “Kerabe?” (Do you have peace? And the adults
would reply, “Kera dorong.” (Peace only. And if an adult
offered his hand, each child in turn would clasp it with both
hands, then stand with palms folded over his chest until that
adult passed by. Kunta’s home-training had been so strict that,
it seemed to him, his every move drew Binta’s irritated fingersnapping–
if, indeed, he wasn’t grabbed and soundly whipped.
When he was eating, he would get a cuff on the head if Binta
caught his eyes on anything except his own food. And unless
he washed off every bit of dirt when he came into the hut from
a hard day’s play, Binta would snatch up her scratchy sponge
of dried plant stems and her bar of homemade soap and
make Kunta think she was going to scrape off his very hide.
For him ever to stare at her, or at his father, or at any other
adult, would earn him a slap as quickly as when he committed
the equally serious offense of interrupting the conversation of
any grown-up. And for him ever to speak anything but truth
would have been unthinkable. Since there never seemed any
reason for him to lie, he never did. Though Binta didn’t seem
to think so, Kunta tried his best to be a good boy, and soon
began to practice his home-training lessons with the other
children. When disagreements occurred among them, as they
often did–some- times fanning into exchanges of harsh words
and fingersnapping–Kunta would always turn and walk away,
thus displaying the dignity and self-command that his mother
had taught him were the proudest traits of the Mandinka tribe.
But almost every night, Kunta got spanked for doing
something bad to his baby brother–usually for frightening him
by snarling fiercely, or by dropping on all fours like a baboon,
rolling his eyes, and stomping his fists like forepaws upon the
ground. “I will bring the toubob!” Binta would yell at Kunta
when he had tried her patience to the breaking point, scaring
Kunta most thoroughly, for the old grandmothers spoke often
of the hairy, red-faced, strangelooking white men whose big
canoes stole people away from their homes.
CHAPTER 8
Though Kunta and his mates were tired and hungry from play
by the time of each day’s setting sun, they would still race one
another to climb small trees and point at the sinking crimson
ball. “He will be even lovelier tomorrow!” they would shout.
And even Juffure’s adults ate dinner quickly so that they might
congregate outside in the deepening dusk to shout and clap
and pound on drums at the rising of the crescent moon,
symbolic of Allah. But when clouds shrouded that new moon,
as they did this night, the people dispersed, alarmed, and the
men entered the mosque to pray for forgiveness, since a
shrouded new moon meant that the heavenly spirits were
displeased with the people of Juffure. After praying, the men
led their frightened families to the baobab, where already on
this night the jaliba squatted by a small fire, heating to its
utmost tautness the goatskin head of his talking drum.
Rubbing at his eyes, which smarted from the smoke of the
fire, Kunta remembered the times that drums talking at night
from different villages had troubled his sleep. Awakening, he
would lie there, listening hard; the sounds and rhythms were
so like those of speech that he would finally understand some
of the words, telling of a famine’ or a plague, or of the raiding
and burning of some village, with its people killed or stolen
away. Hanging on a branch of the baobab, beside the jaliba,
was a goatskin inscribed with the marks that talk, written there
in Arabic by the arafang. In the flickering firelight, Kunta
watched as the jaliba began to beat the knobby elbows of his
crooked sticks very rapidly and sharply against different spots
on the drumhead. It was an urgent message for the nearest
magic man to come to Juffure and drive out evil spirits. Not
daring to look up at the moon, the people hurried home and
fearfully went to bed. But at intervals through the night, the talk
of distant drums echoed the appeal of Juffure for a magic man
in other villages as well. Shivering beneath his cows king
Kunta guessed that their new moon was shrouded, too. The
next day, the men of Omoro’s age had to help the younger
men of the village to guard their nearly ripened fields against
the seasonal plague of hungry baboons and birds. The
second-kafo boys were told to be especially vigilant as they
grazed the goats, and the mothers and grandmothers hovered
closer than they normally would over the toddlers and the
babies. The first kafo’s biggest children, those the size of
Kunta and Sitafa, were instructed to play a little way out past
the village’s tall fence, where they could keep a sharp lookout
for any stranger approaching the travelers’ tree, not far distant.
They did, but none came that day. He appeared on the
second morning–a very old man, walking with the help of a
wooden staff and bearing a large bundle on his bald head.
Spotting him, the children raced shouting back through the
village gate. Leaping up, old Nyo Boto hobbled over and
began to beat on the big tobalo drum that brought the men
rushing back to the village from their fields a moment before
the magic man reached the gate and entered Juffure. As the
villagers gathered around him, he walked over to the baobab
and set down his bundle carefully on the ground. Abruptly
squatting, he then shook from a wrinkled goatskin bag a heap
of dried objects–a small snake, a hyena’s jawbone, a
monkey’s teeth, a pelican’s wing bone various fowls’ feet, and
strange roots. Glancing about, he gestured impatiently for the
hushed crowd to give him more room; and the people moved
back as he began to quiver all over–clearly being attacked by
Juffure’s evil spirits. The magic man’s body writhed, his face
contorted, his eyes rolled wildly, as his trembling hands
struggled to force his resisting wand into contact with the heap
of mysterious objects. When the wand’s tip, with a supreme
effort, finally touched, he fell over backward and lay as if struck
by lightning. The people gasped. But then he slowly began to
revive. The evil spirits had been driven out. As he struggled
weakly to his knees, Juffure’s adults–exhausted but relieved–
went running off to their huts and soon returned with gifts to
press upon him. The magic man added these to his bundle,
which was already large and heavy with gifts from previous
villages, and soon he was on his way to answer the next call.
In his mercy, Allah had seen fit to spare Juffure once again.
CHAPTER 9
Twelve moons had passed, and with the big rains ended once
again. The Gambia’s season for travelers had begun. Along
the network of walking paths between its villages came
enough-visitors–passing by or stopping off in Juffure–to keep
Kunta and his playmates on the lookout almost every day.
After alerting the village when a stranger appeared, they
would rush back out to meet each visitor as he approached
the travelers’ tree. Trooping boldly alongside him, they would
chatter away inquisitively as their sharp eyes hunted for any
signs of his mission or profession. If they found any, they
would abruptly abandon the visitor and race back ahead to tell
the grownups in that day’s hospitality hut. In accordance with
ancient tradition, a different family in each village would be
chosen every day to offer food and shelter to arriving visitors
at no cost for as long as they wished to stay before continuing
their journey. Having been entrusted with the responsibility of
serving as the village lookouts, Kunta, Sitafa, and their kafo
mates began to feel and act older than their rains. Now after
breakfast each morning, they would gather by the arafang’s
schoolyard and kneel quietly to listen as he taught the older
boys–those of the second kafo, just beyond Kunta’s age, five
to nine rains old–how to read their Koranic verses and to write
with grass-quill pens dipped in the black ink of bitter-orange
juice mixed with powdered crust from the bottom of cooking
pots. When the schoolboys finished their lessons and ran on—
with the tails of their cotton dundikos flapping behind them–to
herd the village’s goats out into the brush lands for the day’s
grazing, Kunta and his mates tried to act very unconcerned,
but the truth was that they envied the older boys’ long shirts as
much as they did their important jobs. Though he said nothing,
Kunta was not alone in feeling that he was too grown up to be
treated like a child and made to go naked any longer. They
avoided suckling babies like Lamin as if they were diseased,
and the toddlers they regarded as even more unworthy of
notice, unless it was to give them a good whack when no
adults were watching. Shunning even the attentions of the old
grandmothers who had taken care of them for as long as they
could remember, Kunta, Sitafa, and the others began to hang
around grownups of their parents’ age in hopes of being seen
underfoot and perhaps sent off on an errand. It was just before
the harvest came that Omoro told Kunta very casually, one
night after dinner, that he wanted him up early the next day to
help guard the crops. Kunta was so excited he could hardly
sleep. After gulping down his breakfast in the morning, he
almost burst with joy when Omoro, handed him the hoe to
carry when they set out for the fields. Kunta and his mates
fairly flew up and down the ripe rows, yelling and waving sticks
at the wild pigs and baboons that came grunting from the
brush to root or snatch up ground nuts With dirt clods and
shouts, they routed whistling flocks of blackbirds as they
wheeled low over the couscous, for the grandmothers’ stories
had told of ripened fields ruined as quickly by hungry birds as
by any animal. Collecting the handfuls of couscous and ground
nuts that their fathers had cut or pulled up to test for ripeness,
and carrying gourds of cool water for the men to drink, they
worked all through the day with a swiftness equaled only by
their pride. Six days later, Allah decreed that the harvest
should begin. After the dawn’s suba prayer, the farmers and
their sons–some chosen few carrying small tan-tang and souraba
drums–went out to the fields and waited with heads
cocked, listening. Finally, the village’s great tobalo drum
boomed and the farmers leaped to the harvesting. As the
jaliba and the other drummers walked among them, beating
out a rhythm to match their movements, everyone began to
sing. In exhilaration now and then, a farmer would fling his hoe,
whirling up on one drumbeat and catching it on the next.
Kunta’s kafo sweated alongside their fathers, shaking the
groundnut bushes free of dirt. Halfway through the morning
came the first rest–and then, at midday, happy shouts of relief
as the women and girls arrived with lunch. Walking in single
file, also singing harvest songs, they took the pots from their
heads, ladled the contents into calabashes, and served them
to the drummers and harvesters, who ate and then napped
until the tobalo sounded once again. Piles of the harvest
dotted the fields at the end of that first day. Streaming sweat
and mud, the farmers trudged wearily to the nearest stream,
where they took off their clothes and leaped into the water,
laughing and splashing to cool and clean themselves. Then
they headed home, swatting at the biting flies that buzzed
around their glistening bodies. The closer they came to the
smoke that drifted toward them from the women’s kitchens,
the more tantalizing were the smells of the roasted meats that
would be served three times daily for however long it took to
finish the harvest. After stuffing himself that night, Kunta
noticed–as he had for several nights–that his mother was
sewing something. She said nothing about it, nor did Kunta
ask. But the next morning, as he picked up his hoe and began
to walk out the door, she looked at him and said gruffly, “Why
don’t you put on your clothes?” Kunta jerked around. There,
hanging from a peg, was a brand-new dundiko. Struggling to
conceal his excitement, he matter-of-factly put it on and
sauntered out the door–where he burst into a run. Others of
his kafo were already outside–all of them, like him, dressed
for the first time in their lives, all of them leaping, shouting, and
laughing because their nakedness was covered at last. They
were now officially of the second kafo. They were becoming
men.
CHAPTER 10
By the time Kunta sauntered back into his mother’s hut that
night, he had made sure that everyone in Juffure had seen him
in his dundiko. Though he hadn’t stopped working all day, he
wasn’t a bit tired, and he knew he’d never be able to go to
sleep at his regular bedtime. Perhaps now that he was a
grown-up, Binta would let him stay up later. But soon after
Lamin was asleep, the same as always, she sent him to bed–
with a reminder to hang up his dundiko. As he turned to go,
sulking as conspicuously as he thought he could get away
with, Binta called him back–probably to reprimand him for
sulking, Kunta thought, or maybe she’d taken pity on him and
changed her mind. “Your Pa wants to see you in the morning,”
she said casually. Kunta knew better than to ask why, so he
just said, “Yes, Mama,” and wished her good night. It was just
as well he wasn’t tired, because he couldn’t sleep now
anyway, lying under his cowhide coverlet wondering what he
had done now that was wrong, as it seemed he did so often.
But racking his brain, he couldn’t think of a single thing,
especially nothing so bad that Binta herself wouldn’t have
whacked him for it, since a father would involve himself only
with something pretty terrible. Finally he gave up worrying and
drifted off to sleep. At breakfast the next morning, Kunta was
so subdued that he almost forgot the joy of his dundiko, until
naked little Lamin happened to brush up against it. Kunta’s
hand jerked up to shove him away, but a flashing look from
Binta prevented that. After eating, Kunta hung around for a
while hoping that something more might be said by Binta, but
when she acted as if she hadn’t even told him anything, he
reluctantly left the hut and made his way with slow steps to
Omoro’s hut, where he stood outside with folded hands. When
Omoro emerged and silently handed his son a small new
slingshot, Kunta’s breath all but stopped. He stood looking
down at it, then up at his father, not knowing what to say. “This
is yours as one of the second kafo. Be sure you don’t shoot
the wrong thing, and that you hit what you shoot at.”
Kunta just said,
“Yes, Fa,” still tongue-tied beyond that. “Also, as you are now
second kafo,” Omoro went on, “it means you will begin
tending goats and going to school. You go goat-herding today
with Toumani Touray. He and the other older boys will teach
you. Heed them well. And tomorrow morning you will go to the
schoolyard.” Omoro went back into his hut, and Kunta dashed
away to the goat pens, where he found his friend Sitafa and
the rest of his kafo, all in their new dundikos and clutching their
new slingshots–uncles or older brothers having made them for
boys whose fathers were dead. The older boys were opening
the pens and the bleating goats were bounding forth, hungry
for the day’s grazing. Seeing Toumani, who was the first son of
the couple who were Omoro’s and Binta’s best friends, Kunta
tried to get near him, but Toumani and his mates were all
herding the goats to bump into the smaller boys, who were
trying to scramble out of the way. But soon the laughing older
boys and the wuolo dogs had the goats hurrying down the
dusty path with Kunta’s kafo running uncertainly behind,
clutching their slingshots and trying to brush the dirtied spots
off their dundikos. As familiar with goats as Kunta was, he had
never realized how fast they ran. Except for a few walks with
his father, he had never been so far beyond the village as the
goats were leading them–to a wide grazing area of low brush
and grass with the forest on one side and the fields of village
farmers on the other. The older boys each nonchalantly set
their own herds to grazing in separate grassy spots, while the
wuolo dogs walked about or lay down near the goats. Toumani
finally decided to take notice of Kunta tagging along behind
him, but he acted as if the smaller boy was some kind of
insect. “Do you know the value of a goat?” he asked, and
before Kunta could admit he wasn’t sure, he said, “Well, if you
lose one, your father will let you knowl” And Toumani launched
into a lecture of warnings about goat herding Foremost was
that if any boy’s attention or laziness let any goat stray away
from its herd, no end of horrible things could happen. Pointing
toward the forest, Toumani said that, for one thing, living just
over there, and often creeping on their bellies through the high
grass, were lions and panthers, which, with but a single spring
from the grass, could tear a goat apart. “But if a boy is close
enough,” said Toumani, “he is tastier than a goat!” Noting
Kunta’s wide eyes with satisfaction, Toumani went on: Even a
worse danger than lions and panthers were toubob and their
black slatee helpers, who would crawl through the tall grass to
grab people and take them off to a distant place where they
were eaten. In his own five rains of goat herding he said, nine
boys from Juffure had been taken, and many more from
neighboring villages. Kunta hadn’t known any of the boys who
had been lost from Juffure, but he remembered being so
scared when he heard about them that for a few days he
wouldn’t venture more than a stone’s throw from his mother’s
hut. “But you’re not safe even inside the village gates,” said
Toumani, seeming to read his thoughts. A man he knew from
Juffure, he told Kunta, deprived of everything he owned when
a pride of lions killed his entire herd of goats, had been
caught with toubob money soon after the disappearance of
two third-kafo boys from their own huts one night. He claimed
that he had found the money in the forest, but the day before
his trial by the Council of Elders, he himself had disappeared.
“You would have been too young to remember this,” said
Toumani.”But such things still happen. So never get out of
sight of somebody you trust. And when you’re out here with
your goats, never let them go where you might have to chase
them into deep bush, or your family may never see you again.”
As Kunta stood quaking with fear, Toumani added that even if
a big cat or a toubob didn’t get him, he could still get into
serious trouble if a goat got away from the herd, because a
boy could never catch a dodging goat once it got onto
someone’s nearby farm of couscous and ground nuts And
once the boy and his dog were both gone after it, the
remaining flock might start running after the strayed one, and
hungry goats could ruin a farmer’s field quicker even than
baboons, antelopes, or wild pigs. By noontime, when Toumani
shared the lunch his mother had packed for him and Kunta,
the entire new second kafo had gained a far greater respect
for the goats they had been around all of their lives. After
eating, some of Toumani’s kafo lounged under small trees
nearby, and the rest walked around shooting birds with their
students’ untried slingshots. While Kunta and his mates
struggled to look after the goats, the older boys yelled out
cautions and insults and held their sides with laughter at the
younger boys’ frantic shoutings and dashings toward any goat
that as much as raised its head to look around. When Kunta
wasn’t running after the goats, he was casting nervous
glances toward the forest in case anything was lurking there to
eat him. In the midafternoon, with the goats nearing their fill of
grass, Toumani called Kunta over to him and said sternly, “Do
you intend me to collect your wood for you?” Only then did
Kunta remember how many times he had seen the goatherds
returning in the evening, each of them bearing a head load of
light wood for the night fires of the village. With the goats and
the forest to keep an eye on, it was all Kunta and his mates
could do to run around looking for and picking up light brush
and small fallen limbs that had become dry enough to burn
well. Kunta piled his wood up into a bundle as large as he
thought his head could carry, but Toumani scoffed and threw
on a few more sticks. Then Kunta tied a slender green liana
vine about the wood, doubtful that he could get it onto his
head, let alone all the distance to the village. With the older
boys observing, he and his mates somehow managed to hoist
their head loads and to begin more or less following the wuolo
dogs and the goats, who knew the homeward trail better than
their new herdsmen did. Amid the older boys’ scornful
laughter, Kunta and the others kept grabbing at their head
loads to keep them from falling off. The sight of the village had
never been prettier to Kunta, who was bone-weary by now; but
no sooner had they stepped inside the village gates when the
older boys set up a terrific racket, yelling out warnings and
instructions and jumping around so that all of the adults within
view and hearing would know that they were doing their job
and that their day of training these clumsy younger boys had
been a -most trying experience for them. Kunta’s head load
somehow safely reached the yard of Brima Cesay, the
arafang, whose education of Kunta and his new kafo would
begin the next morning. Just after breakfast, the new
herdsmen–each, with pride, carrying a cottonwood writing
slate, a quill, and a section of bamboo cane containing soot to
mix with water for ink–trooped anxiously into the schoolyard.
Treating them as if they were even more stupid than their
goats, the arafang ordered the boys to sit down. Hardly had
he uttered the words when he began laying about among them
with his limber stick, sending them scrambling–their first
obedience to his command not having come as quickly as he
wanted. Scowling, he further warned them that for as long as
they would attend his classes, anyone who made so much as
a sound, unless asked to speak, would get more of the rod–
he brandished it fiercely at them–and be sent home to his
parents. And the same would be dealt out to any boy who was
ever late for his classes, which would be held after breakfast
and again just after their return with the goats. “You are no
longer children, and you have responsibilities now,” said the
arafang. “See to it that you fulfill them.” With these disciplines
established, he announced that they would begin that
evening’s class with his reading certain verses of the Koran,
which they would be expected to memorize and recite before
proceeding to other things. Then he excused them, as his
older students, the former goatherds, began arriving. They
looked even more nervous than Kunta’s kafo, for this was the
day for their final examinations in Koranic recitations and in
the writing of Arabic, the results of which would bear heavily
upon their being formally advanced into the status of third
kafo. That day, all on their own for the first time in their lives,
Kunta’s kafo managed to get the goats un penned and trotting
in a ragged line along the trail out to the grazing area. For a
good while to come, the goats probably got less to eat than
usual, as Kunta and his mates chased and yelled at them
every time they took a few steps to a new clump of grass. But
Kunta felt even more hounded than his herd. Every time he sat
down to sort out the meaning of these changes in his life,
there seemed to be something he had to do, someplace he
had to go. What with the goats all day, the arafang after
breakfast and after herding, and then whatever slingshot
practice he could fit in before darkness, he could never seem
to find the time for any serious thinking any more.
CHAPTER 11
The harvesting of ground nuts and couscous was complete,
and the women’s rice came next. No men helped their wives;
even boys like Sitafa and Kunta didn’t help their mothers, for
rice was women’s work alone. The first light of dawn found
Binta with Jankay Touray and the other women bending in
their ripe fields and chopping off the long golden stalks, which
were left to dry for a few days on the walkway before being
loaded into canoes and taken to the village, where the women
and their daughters would stack their neat bundles in each
family’s storehouse. But there was no rest for the women even
when the rice harvesting was done, for then they had to help
the men to pick the cotton, which had been left until last so that
it would dry as long as possible under the hot sun and thus
make better thread for the women’s sewing. With everyone
looking forward to Juffure’s annual seven- day harvest festival,
the women hurried now to make new clothes for their families.
Though Kunta knew better than to show his irritation, he was
forced for several evenings to tend his talky, pesty little brother
Lamin while Binta spun her cotton. But Kunta was happy
again when she took him with her to the village weaver,
Dembo Dibba, whom Kunta watched in fascination as her
rickety hand- and-foot loom wove the spindles of thread into
strips of cotton cloth. Back at home, Binta let Kunta trickle
water through wood ashes to make the strong lye into which
she mixed finely pounded indigo leaves to dye her cloth deep
blue. All of “tuffure’s women were doing the same, and soon
their cloth was spread across low bushes to dry, festooning
the village with splashes of rich color–red, green, and yellow
as well as blue. While the women spun and sewed, the men
worked equally hard to finish their own appointed tasks before
the harvest festival–and before the hot season made heavy
work impossible. The village’s tall bamboo fence was patched
where it was sagging or broken from the back scratching of
the goats and bullocks. Repairs were made on mud huts that
had been damaged by the big rains, and new thatching
replaced the old and worn. Some couples, soon to marry,
required new homes, and Kunta got the chance to join the
other children in stomping water-soaked dirt into the thick,
smooth mud that the men used to mold walls for the new huts.
Since some muddy water had begun to appear in the buckets
that were pulled up from the well, one of the men climbed
down and found that the small fish that was kept in the well to
eat insects had died in the murky water. So it was decided
that a new well must be dug. Kunta was watching as the men
reached shoulder depth in the new hole, and passed upward
several egg-sized lumps of a greenish-white clay. They were
taken immediately to those women of the village whose
bellies were big, and eaten eagerly. That clay, Binta told him,
would give a baby stronger bones. Left to themselves, Kunta,
Sitafa, and their mates spent most of their free hours racing
about the village playing hunter with their new slingshots.
Shooting at nearly every- thing–and fortunately hitting almost
nothing–the boys made enough noise to scare off a forest of
animals. Even the smaller children of Lamin’s kafo romped
almost unattended, for no one in Juffure was busier than the
old grandmothers, who worked often now until late at night to
supply the demands of the village’s unmarried girls for
hairpieces to wear at the harvest festival. Buns, plaits, and full
wigs were woven of long fibers picked carefully from rotting
sisal leaves or from the soaked bark of the baobab tree. The
coarser sisal hairpieces cost much less than those made from
the softer, silkier fiber of the baobab whose weaving took so
much longer that a full wig might cost as much as three goats.
But the customers always haggled long and loudly, knowing
that the grandmothers charged less if they enjoyed an hour or
so of good, tongue-clacking bargaining before each sale.
Along with her wigs, which were especially well made, old Nyo
Boto pleased every woman in the village with her noisy
defiance of the ancient tradition that decreed women should
always show men the utmost of respect. Every morning found
her squatted comfortably before her hut, stripped to the waist,
enjoying the sun’s heat upon her tough old hide and busily
weaving hairpieces–but never so busily that she failed to
notice every passing man. “Hah!” she would call out, “Look at
that! They call themselves men! Now, in my day, men were
men!” And the men who passed–expecting what always
came–would all but run to escape her tongue, until finally Nyo
Boto fell asleep in the afternoon, with her weaving in her lap
and the toddlers in her care laughing at her loud snoring. The
second-kafo girls, meanwhile, were helping their mothers and
big sisters to collect bamboo baskets full of ripe medicinal
roots and cooking spices, which they spread under the sun to
dry. When grains were being pounded, the girls brushed away
the husks and chaff. They helped also with the family washing,
beating against rocks the soiled clothing that had been
lathered with the rough, reddish soap the mothers had made
from lye and palm oil. The men’s main work done–only a few
days before the new moon that would open the harvest festival
in all of The Gambia’s villages–the sounds of musical
instruments began to be heard here and there in Juffure. As
the village musicians practiced on their twenty-four-stringed
koras, their drums, and their balafons–melodious instruments
made of gourds tied beneath wooden blocks of various
lengths that were struck with mallets–little crowds would
gather around them to clap and listen. While they played,
Kunta and Sitafa and their mates, back from their goat
herding would troop about blowing bamboo flutes, ringing
bells, and rattling dried gourds. Most men relaxed now, talking
and squatting about in the shade of the baobab. Those of
Omoro’s age and younger kept respectfully apart from the
Council of Elders, who were making their annual pre festival
decisions on important village business. Occasionally two or
three of the younger men would rise, stretch themselves, and
go ambling about the village with their small fingers linked
loosely in the age-old yayo manner of African men. But a few
of the men spent long hours alone, patiently carving on pieces
of wood of different sizes and shapes. Kunta and his friends
would sometimes even put aside their slings just to stand
watching as the carvers created terrifying and mysterious
expressions on masks soon to be worn by festival dancers.
Others carved human or animal figures with the arms and legs
very close to the body, the feet flat, and the heads erect. Binta
and the other women snatched what little relaxation they could
around the village’s new well, where they came every day for a
cool drink and a few minutes of gossip. But with the festival
now upon them, they still had much to do. Clothing had to be
finished, huts to be cleaned, dried foods to be soaked, goats
to be slaughtered for roasting. And above all, the women had
to make themselves look their very best for the festival. Kunta
thought that the big tomboyish girls he had so often seen
scampering up trees looked foolish now, the way they went
about acting coy and fluttery. They couldn’t even walk right.
And he couldn’t see why the men would turn around to watch
them–clumsy creatures who couldn’t even shoot a bow and
arrow if they tried. Some of these girls’ mouths, he noticed,
were swelled up to the size of a fist. where the inner lips had
been pricked with thorns and rubbed black with soot. Even
Binta, along with every other female in the village over twelve
rains old, was nightly boiling and then cooling a broth of freshly
pounded fudano leaves in which she soaked her feet–and the
pale palms of her hands–to an inky blackness. When Kunta
asked his mother why, she told him to run along. So he asked
his father, who told him, “The more blackness a woman has,
the more beautiful she is.” “But why?” asked Kunta.
“Someday,” said Omoro, “you will understand.”
CHAPTER 12
Kunta leaped up when the tobalo sounded at dawn. Then he,
Sitafa, and their mates were running among grownups to the
silk-cotton tree, where the village drummers were already
pounding on the drums, barking and shouting at them as if
they were live things, their hands a blur against the taut
goatskins. The gathering crowd of costumed villagers, one by
one, soon began to respond with slow movements of their
arms, legs, and bodies, then faster and faster, until almost
everyone had joined the dancing. Kunta had seen such
ceremonies for many plantings and harvests, for men leaving
to hunt, for weddings, births, and deaths, but the dancing had
never moved him–in a way he neither understood nor was
able to resist–as it did now. Every adult in the village seemed
to be saying with his body something that was in his or her
mind alone. Among the whirling, leaping, writhing people,
some of them wearing masks, Kunta could scarcely believe
his eyes when he saw tough old Nyo Boto suddenly shrieking
wildly, jerking both of her hands before her face, then lurching
backward in fear at some unseen terror. Snatching up an
imaginary burden, she thrashed and kicked the air until she
crumpled down. Kunta turned this way and that, staring at
different people he knew among the dancers. Under one of
the horrifying masks, Kunta recognized the alimamo, flinging
and winding himself again and again like some serpent
around a tree trunk. He saw that some of those he had heard
were even older than Nyo Boto had left their huts, stumbling
out on spindly legs, their wrinkled arms flapping, their rheumy
eyes squinting in the sun, to dance a few unsteady steps.
Then Kunta’s eyes widened as be caught sight of his own
father. Omoro’s knees were churning high, his feet stomping
up dust. With ripping cries, he reared backward, muscles
trembling, then lunged forward, hammering at his chest, and
went leaping and twisting in the air, landing with heavy grunts;
The pounding heartbeat of the drums seemed to throb not only
in Kunta’s ears but also in his limbs. Almost without his
knowing it, as if it were a dream, he felt his body begin to
quiver and his arms to flail, and soon he was springing and
shouting along with the others, whom he had ceased to notice.
Finally he stumbled and fell, exhausted. He picked himself up
and walked with weak knees to the sidelines–feeling a deep
strangeness that he had never known before. Dazed,
frightened, and excited, he saw not only Sitafa but also others
of their kafo out there dancing among the grownups, and
Kunta danced again. From the very young to the very old, the
villagers danced on through the entire day, they and the
drummers stopping for neither food nor drink but only to catch
fresh breath. But the drums were still beating when Kunta
collapsed into sleep that night. The festival’s second day
began with a parade for the people of honor just after the noon
sun. At the head of the parade were the arafang, the alimamo,
the senior elders, the hunters, the wrestlers, and those others
whom the Council of Elders had named for their important
deeds in Juffure since the last harvest festival. Everyone else
came trailing behind, singing and applauding, as the
musicians led them out in a snaking line beyond the village.
And when they made a turn around the travelers’ tree, Kunta
and his kafo dashed ahead, formed their own pa- fade, and
then trooped back and forth past the marching adults,
exchanging bows and smiles as they went, stepping briskly in
time with their flutes, bells, and rattles. The parading boys took
turns at being the honored person; when it. was Kunta’s turn,
he pranced about, lifting his knees high, feeling very important
indeed. In passing the grownups, he caught both Omoro’s and
Binta’s eyes and knew they were proud of their son. The
kitchen of every woman in the village offered a variety of food
in open invitation to anyone who passed by and wished to
stop a moment and enjoy a plateful. Kunta and his kafo
gorged themselves from many calabashes of delicious stews
and rice. Even roasted meats–goats and game from the
forest–were in abundance; and it was the young girls’ special
duty to keep bamboo baskets filled with every available fruit.
When they weren’t stuffing their bellies, the boys darted out to
the travelers’ tree to meet the exciting strangers who now
entered the village. Some stayed overnight, but most tarried
only a few hours before moving on to the next village’s festival.
The visiting Senegalese set up colorful displays with bolts of
decorated cloth. Others arrived with heavy sacks of the very
best quality Nigerian kola nuts, the grade and size of each
determining the price. Traders came up the belong in boats
laden with salt bars to exchange for indigo, hides, beeswax,
and honey. Nyo Boto was herself now busily selling–for a
cowrie shell apiece–small bundles of cleaned and trimmed
lemongrass roots, whose regular rubbing against the teeth
kept the breath sweet and the mouth fresh. Pagan traders
hurried on past Juffure, not even stopping, for their wares of
tobacco and snuff and mead beer were for infidels only, since
the Moslem Mandinkas never drank nor smoked. Others who
seldom stopped, bound as they were for bigger villages, were
numerous footloose young men from other villages–as some
young men had also left Juffure during the harvest season.
Spotting them as they passed on the path beyond the village,
Kunta and his mates would run alongside them for a while
trying to see what they carried in their small bamboo head
baskets Usually it was clothing and small gifts for new friends
whom they expected to meet in their wanderings, before
returning to their home villages by the next planting season.
Every morning the village slept and awakened to the sound of
drums. And every day brought different ‘traveling musicians–
experts on the Koran, the balafon, and the drums. And if they
were flattered enough by the gifts that were pressed upon
them, along with the dancing and the cheers and clapping of
the crowds, they would stop and play for a while before
moving on to the next village. When the story-telling griots
came, a quick hush would fall among the villagers as they sat
around the baobab to hear of ancient kings and family clans,
of warriors, of great battles, and of legends of the past. Or a
religious griot would shout prophecies and warnings that
Almighty Allah must be appeased, and then offer to conduct
the necessary–and by now, to Kunta, familiar–ceremonies in
return for a small gift. In his high voice, a singing griot sang
endless verses about the past splendors of the kingdoms of
Ghana, Songhai, and Old Mali, and when he finished, some
people of the village would often privately pay him to sing the
praises of their own aged parents at their huts. And the people
would applaud when the old ones came to their doorways and
stood blinking in the bright sunshine with wide, toothless grins.
His good deeds done, the singing griot reminded everyone
that a drum talk message–and a modest offering–would
quickly bring him to Juffure any time to sing anyone’s praises
at funerals, weddings, or other special occasions. And then he
hurried on to the’ next village. It was during the harvest
festival’s sixth afternoon when suddenly the sound of a strange
drum cut through Juffure. Hearing the insulting words spoken
by the drum, Kunta hurried outside and joined the other
villagers as they gathered angrily beside the baobab. The
drum, obviously quite nearby, had warned of oncoming
wrestlers so mighty that any so-called wrestlers in Juffure
should hide. Within minutes, the people of Juffure cheered as
their own drum sharply replied that such foolhardy strangers
were asking to get crippled, if not worse. The villagers rushed
now to the wrestling place. As Juffure’s wrestlers slipped into
their brief dalas with the rolled- cloth handholds on the sides
and buttocks, and smeared themselves with a slippery paste
of pounded baobab leaves and wood ashes, they heard the
shouts that meant that then” challengers had arrived. These
powerfully built strangers never glanced at the jeering crowd.
Trotting behind their drummer, they went directly to the
wrestling area, clad already in their dalas, and began rubbing
one another with their own slippery paste. When Juffure’s
wrestlers appeared behind the village drummers, the crowd’s
shouting and jostling became so unruly that both drummers
had to implore them to remain calm. Then both drums spoke:
“Ready!” The rival teams paired off, each two wrestlers
crouching and glaring face to face. “Take hold! Take hold!” the
drums ordered, and each pair of wrestlers began a catlike
circling. Both of the drummers now went darting here and
there among the stalking men; each drummer was pounding
out the names of that village’s ancestral champion wrestlers,
whose spirits were looking on. With lightning feints, one after
another pair finally seized hold and began to grapple. Soon
both teams struggled amid the dust clouds their feet kicked
up, nearly hiding them from the wildly yelling spectators.
Dogfalls or slips didn’t count; a victory came only when one
wrestler pulled another off balance, thrust him bodily upward,
and hurled him to the ground. Each time there came a fall–first
one of Juffure’s champions, then one of the challengers–the
crowd jumped and screamed, and a drummer pounded out
that winner’s name. Just beyond the excited crowd, of course,
Kunta and his mates were wrestling among themselves. At
last it was over, and Juffure’s team had won by a single fall.
They were awarded the horns and hooves of a freshly
slaughtered bullock. Big chunks of the meat were put to roast
over a fire, and the brave challengers were invited warmly to
join the feasting. The people congratulated the visitors on their
strength, and unmarried maidens tied small bells around all of
the wrestlers’ ankles and upper arms. And during the feasting
that followed, Juffure’s third-kafo boys swept and brushed to
smoothness the wrestling area’s reddish dust to prepare it for
a seoruba. The hot sun had just begun to sink when the
people again assembled around the wrestling area, now all
dressed in their best. Against a low background of drums,
both wrestling teams leaped into the ring and began to crouch
and spring about, their muscles rippling and their little bells
tinkling as the onlookers admired their might and grace. The
drums suddenly pounded hard; now the maidens ran out into
the ring, weaving coyly among the wrestlers as the people
clapped. Then the drummers began to beat their hardest and
fastest rhythm–and the maidens’ feet kept pace. One girl after
another, sweating and exhausted, finally stumbled from the
ring, flinging to the dust her colorfully dyed tiko head wrap All
eyes watched eagerly to see if the marriageable man would
pick up that tiko, thus showing his special appreciation of that
maiden’s dance–for it could mean he meant soon to consult
her father about her bridal price in goats and cows. Kunta and
his mates, who were too young to understand such things,
thought the excitement was over and ran off to play with their
slingshots. But it had just begun, for a moment later, everyone
gasped as a tiko was picked up by one of the visiting
wrestlers. This was a major event–and a happy one–but the
lucky maiden would not be the first who was lost through
marriage to another village.
CHAPTER 13
On the final morning of the festival, Kunta was awakened by
the sound of screams. Pulling on his dundiko, he went dashing
out, and his stomach knotted with fright. Before several of the
nearby huts, springing up and down, shrieking wildly and
brandishing spears, were halfa dozen men in fierce masks,
tall headdresses, and costumes of leaf and bark. Kunta
watched in terror as one man entered each hut with a roar and
emerged jerking roughly by the arm a trembling boy of the
third kafo. Joined by a cluster of his own equally terrified
second- kafo mates, Kunta peered with wide eyes around the
corner of a hut. A heavy white cotton hood was over the head
of each third-kafo boy. Spying Kunta, Sitafa, and their group of
little boys, one of the masked men dashed toward them
waving his spear and shouting fearfully. Though he stopped
short and turned back to his hooded charge, the boys
scattered, squealing in horror. And when all of the village’s
third-kafo boys had been collected, they were turned over to
slaves, who took them by the hand and led them, one by one,
out the village gate. Kunta had heard that these older boys
were going to be taken away from Juffure for their manhood
training, but he had no idea that it would happen like this. The
departure of the third-kafo boys, along with the men who
would conduct their manhood training, cast a shadow of
sadness upon the entire village. In the days that followed,
Kunta and his mates could talk of nothing but the terrifying
things they had seen, and of the even more terrifying things
they had overheard about the mysterious manhood training. In
the mornings, the arafang rapped their heads for their lack of
interest in memorizing the Koranic verses. And after school,
trooping along behind their goats out into the bush Kunta and
his mates each tried not to think about what each could not
forget–that he would be among Juflfure’s next group of
hooded boys jerked and kicked out through the village gate.
They all had heard that a full twelve moons would pass before
those third-kafo boys would return to the village–but then as
men. Kunta said that someone had told him that the boys in
manhood training got heatings daily. A boy named Karamo
said they were made to hunt wild animals for food; and Sitafa
said they were sent out alone at night into the deep forest, to
find their own way back. But the worst thing, which none of
them mentioned, although it made Kunta nervous each time
he had to relieve himself, was that during the manhood
training a part of his foto would be cut off. After a while, the
more they talked, the idea of manhood training became so
frightening that the boys slopped talking about it, and each of
them tried to conceal his fears within himself, not wanting to
show that he wasn’t brave. Kunta and his mates had gotten
much better at goat- herding since their first anxious days out
in the bush. But they still had much to learn. Their job, they
were beginning to discover, was hardest in the mornings,
when swarms of biting flies kept the goats bolting this way and
that, quivering their skins and switching their stubby tails as
the boys and the dogs nrshed about trying to herd them
together again. But before noon, when the sun grew so hotthat
even the flies sought cooler places, the tired goats settled
down to serious grazing, and the boys could finally enjoy
themselves. By now they were crack shots with their
slingshots–and also with the new bows and arrows their
fathers had given them on graduating to the second kafo–and
they spent an hour or so killing every small creature they could
find: hares, ground squirrels, bush rats, lizards, and one day a
tricky spur fowl that tried to decoy Kunta away from her nest by
dragging a wing as if it had been injured. In the early
afternoon, the boys skinned and cleaned the day’s game,
rubbing the insides with the salt they always carried, and then,
building a fire, roasted themselves a feast. Each day out in the
bush seemed to be hotter than the day before. Earlier and
earlier, the insects stopped biting the goats to look for shade,
and the goats bent down on their knees to get at the short
grass that remained green beneath the parched taller grass.
But Kunta and his mates hardly noticed the heat. Glistening
with sweat, they played as if each day were the most exciting
one in their lives. With their bellies tight after the afternoon
meal, they wrestled or raced or sometimes just yelled and
made faces at one another, taking turns at keeping a wary eye
on the grazing goats. Playing at war, the boys clubbed and
speared each other with thick-rooted weeds until someone
held up a handful of grass as a sign of peace. Then they
cooled off their warrior spirits by rubbing their feet with the
contents of the stomach of a slaughtered rabbit; they had
heard in the grandmothers’ stories that real warriors used the
stomach of a lamb. Sometimes Kunta and his mates romped
with their faithful wuolo dogs, which Mandinkas had kept for
centuries, for they were known as one of the very finest breeds
of hunting and guard dogs in all of Africa. No man could count
the goats and cattle that had been saved on dark nights from
killer hyenas by the howling of the wuolos. But hyenas weren’t
the game stalked by Kunta and his mates when they played at
being huntsmen. In their imaginations, as they crept about in
the tall, sun-baked grass of the savanna, their quarry were
rhinoceros, elephant, leopard, and the mighty lion.
Sometimes, as a boy followed his goats around in their
search for grass and shade, he would find himself separated
from his mates. The first few times it happened to him, Kunta
herded up his goats as quickly as he could and headed back
to be near Sitafa. But soon he began to like these moments of
solitude, for they gave him the chance to stalk some great
beast by himself. It was no ordinary antelope, leopard, or even
lion that he sought in his daydreaming; it was that most feared
and dangerous of al beasts–a maddened buffalo. The one he
tracked had spread” so much terror throughout the land that
many hunters had been sent to kill the savage animal, but they
had managed only ‘to wound it, and one after another, it had
gored them with its wicked horns. Even more bloodthirsty than
before with its painful wound, the buffalo had then charged
and killed several farmers from Juffure who had been working
on their fields outside the village. The famed simbon Kunta
Kinte had been deep in the forest, smoking out a bee’s nest to
sustain his energy with rich honey, when he heard the distant
drum talk begging him to save the people of the village of his
birth. He could not refuse. Not even a blade of the dry grass
crackled under his feet, so silently did he stalk for signs of the
buffalo’s trail, using the sixth sense that told master simbons
which way animals would travel. And soon he found the tracks
he sought; they were larger than any he had ever seen. Now
trotting silently, he drew deeply into his nostrils the foul smell
that led him to giant, fresh buffalo dung. And maneuvering now
with all the craft and skill at his command, simbon Kinte finally
spotted the huge bulk of the beast himself–it would have been
concealed from ordinary eyes–hiding in the dense, high
grass. Straining back his bow, Kinte took careful aim–and
sent the arrow thudding home. The buffalo was badly
wounded now, but more dangerous than ever. Springing
suddenly from side to side, Kinte evaded the beast’s
desperate, stricken charge and braced himself as it wheeled
to charge again. He fired his second arrow only when he had
to leap aside at the last instant–and the huge buffalo crashed
down dead. Kinte’s piercing whistle brought from hiding, awed
and trembling, those previous hunters who had failed where
he had gloriously succeeded. He ordered them to remove the
huge hide and horns and to summon still more men to help
drag the carcass all the way back to Juffure. The joyously
shouting people had laid down a pathway of hides within the
village gate so that Kinte would not get dust upon his feet.
“Simbon Kinte!” the talking drum beat out. “Simbon Kinte!”
the children shouted, waving leafy branches above their
heads. Everyone was pushing and shoving and trying to touch
the mighty hunter so that some of his prowess might rub off on
them. Small boys danced around the huge carcass, reenacting
the kill with wild cries and long sticks. And now,
walking toward him from amid the crowd, came the strongest,
most graceful, and most beautifully black of all the maidens in
Juffure–indeed, in all of The Gambia–and kneeling before
him, she offered a calabash of cool water; but Kinte, not
thirsty, merely wet his fingers, to favor her, whereupon she
drank that water with happy tears, thus showing to everyone
the fullness of her love. The clamoring crowd was spreading–
making way for aged, wrinkled, gray-headed Omoro and
Binta, who came tottering against their canes. The simbon
permitted his old mother to embrace him while Omoro looked
on, eyes filled with pride. And the people of Juffure chanted
“Kintel Kinte!” Even the dogs were barking their acclaim. Was
that his own wuolo dog barking? “Kinte! Kinte!” Was that
Sitafa yelling frantically? Kunta snapped out of it just in time to
see his forgotten goats bounding toward someone’s farm.
Sitafa and his other mates and their dogs helped to herd them
up again before any damage was done, but Kunta was so
ashamed that a whole moon went by before he drifted off into
any more such daydreams.
CHAPTER 14
As hot as the sun already was, the five long moons of the dry
season had only begun. The heat devils shimmered, making
objects larger in the distance, and the people sweated in their
huts almost as much as they did in the fields. Before Kunta left
home each morning for his goat- herding, Binta saw that he
protected his feet well with red palm oil, but each afternoon,
when he returned to the village from the open bush, his lips
were parched and the soles of his feet were dry and cracked
by the baking earth beneath them. Some of the boys came
home with bleeding feet, but out they would go again each
morning–uncomplaining, like their fathers–into the fierce heat
of the dry grazing land, which was even worse than in the
village. By the time the sun reached its zenith, the boys and
their dogs and the goats all lay panting in the shade of scrub
trees, the boys too tired to hunt and roast the small game that
had been their daily sport. Mostly, they just sat and chatted as
cheerfully as they could, but somehow by this time the
adventure of goat herding had lost some of its excitement. It
didn’t seem possible that the sticks they gathered every day
would be needed to keep them warm at night, but once the
sun set, the air turned as cold as it had been hot. And after
their evening meat, the people of Juffure huddled around their
crackling fires. Men of Omoro’s age sat talking around one
fire, and a little distance away was the fire of the elders.
Around still another sat the women and the unmarried girls,
apart from the old grandmothers, who told their nightly stories
to the little first-kafo children around a fourth fire. Kunta and
the other second-kafo boys were too proud to sit with the
naked first kafo of Lamin and his mates, so they squatted far
enough away not to seem part of that noisy, giggling group–
yet near enough to hear the old grandmothers’ stories, which
still thrilled them as much as ever. Sometimes Kunta and his
mates eavesdropped on those at other fires; but the
conversations were mostly about the heat. Kunta heard the old
men recalling times when the sun had killed plants and burned
crops; how it had made the well go stale, or dry, of times when
the heat had dried the people out like husks. This hot season
was bad, they said, but not as bad as many they could
remember. It seemed to Kunta that older people always could
remember something worse. Then, abruptly one day,
breathing the air was like breathing flames, and that night the
people shivered beneath their blankets with the cold creeping
into their bones. Again the next morning, they were mopping
their faces and trying to draw a full breath. That afternoon the
harmattan wind began. It wasn’t a hard wind, nor even a gusty
wind, either of which would have helped. Instead it blew softly
and steadily, dusty and dry, day and night, for nearly halfa
moon. As it did each time it came, the constant blowing of the
harmattan wore away slowly at the nerves of the people of
Juffure. And soon parents were yelling more often than usual
at their children, and whipping them for no good reason. And
though bickering was unusual among the Mandinkas, hardly a
daytime hour passed without loud shoutings between some
adults, especially between younger husbands and wives like
Omoro and Binta. Suddenly then nearby doorways would fill
with people watching as the couple’s mothers went rushing
into that hut. A moment later the shouting would grow louder,
and next a rain of sewing baskets, cooking pots, calabashes,
stools, and clothes would be hurled out the door. Then,
bursting out themselves, the wife and her mother would snatch
up the possessions and go storming off to the mother’s hut.
After about two moons, just as it had begun, the harmattan
suddenly stopped. In less than a day, the air became still, the –
sky clear. Within one night, a parade of wives slipped back in
with their husbands, and their mothers-in- law were
exchanging small gifts and patching up arguments all over the
village. But the five long moons of the dry season were only
half over. Though food was still plentiful in the storehouses, the
mothers only cooked small quantities, for no one, not even the
usually greedy children, felt like eating much. Everyone was
sapped of strength by the sun’s heat, and the people talked
less and went about doing only the things they had to do. The
hides of the gaunt cattle in the village were broken by lumpy
sores where biting flies had laid their eggs. A quietness had
come upon the scrawny chickens that normally ran squawking
around the village, and they lay in the dust on their sides, with
their wings fanned out and their beaks open. Even the
monkeys now were seldom seen or heard, for most of them
had gone into the forest for more shade. And the goats, Kunta
noticed, grazing less and less in the heat, had grown nervous
and thin. For some reason–perhaps it was the heat, or
perhaps simply because they were growing older–Kunta and
his goat herding mates, who had spent every day together out
in the bush for almost six moons, now began to drift off alone
with their own small herds. It had happened for several days
before Kunta realized that he had never before been
completely away from other people for any real length of time.
He looked across at other boys and their goats in the
distance, scattered across the silence of the sunbaked bush.
Beyond them lay the fields where the farmers were chopping
the weeds that had grown in the moons since the last harvest.
The tall piles of weeds they raked to dry under the sun
seemed to wave and shimmer in the beat. Wiping the sweat
from his brow, it seemed to Kunta that his people were always
enduring one hardship or an- other–something uncomfortable
or difficult, or frightening, or threatening to life itself. He thought
about the burning, hot days and the cold nights that followed
them. And he thought about the rains that would come next,
turning the village into a mud hole and finally submerging the
walking paths until the people had to travel in their canoes
from place to place where usually they walked. They needed
the rain as they needed the sun, but there always seemed to
be too much or too little. Even when the goats were fat and the
trees were heavy with fruit and blossoms, he knew that would
be the time when the last rain’s harvest would run out in the
family storehouses and that this would bring the hungry
season, with people starving and some even dying, like his
own dearly remembered Grandma Yaisa. “The harvest
season was a happy one–and after that, the harvest festival–
but it was over so soon, and then the long, hot, dry season
would come again, with its awful harmattan, when Binta kept
shouting at him and beating on Lamin–until he almost felt
sorry for his pest of a small brother. As he herded his goats
back toward the village, Kunta remembered the stories he
had heard so many times when he was as young as Lamin,
about how the forefathers bad always lived through great fears
and dangers. As far back as time went, Kunta guessed, the
lives of the people had been hard. Perhaps they always would
be. Each evening in the village now, the alimamo led the
prayers for Allah to send the rains. And then one day,
excitement filled Juffure when some gentle winds stirred up
the dust–for those winds meant that the rains were soon to
come. And the next morning, the people of the village
gathered out in the fields, where the farmers set afire the tall
piles of weeds they had raked up, and thick smoke coiled up
over the fields. The heat was nearly unbearable, but the
sweating people danced and cheered, and the firstkafo
children went racing and whooping about, each trying to catch
good-luck pieces of drifting, feathery flakes of ashes. The next
day’s light winds began to sift the loose ashes over the fields,
enriching the soil to grow yet another crop. The farmers now
began chopping busily with their hoes, preparing the long
rows to receive the seeds–in this seventh planting time
through which Kunta had lived in the endless cycle of the
seasons.
CHAPTER 15
Two rains had passed, and Binta’s belly was big again, and
her temper was even shorter than usual. So quick was she to
whack both her sons, in fact, that Kunta was grateful each
morning when goat herding let him escape her for a few
hours, and when he returned in the afternoon, he couldn’t help
feeling sorry for Lamin, who was only old enough to get into
mischief and get beaten but not old enough to get out of the
house alone. So one day when he came home and found his
little brother in tears, he asked Binta–not without some
misgivings–if Lamin could join him on an errand, and she
snapped “Yes!” Naked little Lamin could hardly contain his
happiness over this amazing act of kindness, but Kunta was
so disgusted with his own impulsiveness that he gave him a
good kick and a cuffing as soon as they got beyond Binta’s
earshot. Lamia hollered–and then followed his brother like a
puppy. Every afternoon after that, Kunta found Lamin waiting
anxiously at the door in hopes that his big brother would take
him out again. Kunta did, nearly every day–but not because
he wanted to. Binta would profess such great relief at getting
some rest from both of them that Kunta now feared a beating
if he didn’t take Lamin along. It seemed as if a bad dream had
attached his naked little brother to Kunta’s back like some
giant leech from the belong. But soon Kunta began to notice
that some of the kafo mates also had small brothers tagging
along behind them. Though they would play off to one side or
dart about nearby, they always kept a sharp eye on their big
brothers, who did their best to ignore them. Sometimes the
big boys would dash off suddenly, jeering back at the young
ones as they scrambled to catch up with them. When Kunta
and his mates climbed trees, their little brothers, trying to
follow, usually tumbled back to the ground, and the older boys
would laugh loudly at their clumsiness. It began to be fun
having them around. Alone with Lamin, as he sometimes was,
Kunta might pay his brother a bit more attention. Pinching a
tiny seed between his fingers, he would explain that Juffure’s
giant silk-cotton tree grew from a thing that small. Catching a
honeybee, Kunta would hold it carefully for Lamin to see the
stinger; then, turning the bee around, he would explain how
bees sucked the sweetness from flowers and used it to make
honey in their nests in the tallest trees. And Lamin began to
ask Kunta a lot of questions, most of which he would patiently
answer. There was something nice about Lamin’s feeling that
Kunta knew everything. It made Kunta feel older than his eight
rains. In spite of himself, he began to regard his little brother
as something more than a pest. Kunta took great pains not to
show it, of course, but returning homeward now each
afternoon with his goats, he really looked forward to Lamin’s
eager reception. Once Kunta thought that he even saw Binta
smile as he and Lamin left the hut. In fact, Binta would often
snap at her younger son, “Have your brother’s manners!” The
next moment, she might whack Kunta for something, but not
as often as she used to. Binta would also tell Lamin that if he
didn’t act properly, he couldn’t go with Kunta, and Lamin would
be very good for the rest of the day. He and Lamin would
always leave the hut now walking very politely, hand in hand,
but once outside, Kunta went dashing and whooping–with
Lamin racing behind him–to join the other second- and firstkafo
boys. During one afternoon’s romping, when a fellow
goatherd of Kunta’s happened to run into Lamin, knocking him
on his back, Kunta was instantly there, shoving that boy
roughly aside and exclaiming hotly, “That’s my brother!” The
boy protested and they were ready to exchange blows when
the others grabbed their arms. Kunta snatched the crying
Lamin by the hand and jerked him away from their staring
playmates. Kunta was both deeply embarrassed and
astonished at himself for acting as he had toward his own
kafo mate–and especially over such a thing as a sniffling little
brother. But after that day, Lamin began openly trying to
imitate whatever he saw Kunta do, sometimes even with Binta
or Omoro looking on. Though he pretended not to like it, Kunta
couldn’t help feeling just a little proud. When Lamin fell from a
low tree he was trying to climb one afternoon, Kuota showed
him how to do it right. At one time or another, he taught his
little brother how to wrestle (so that Lamin could win the
respect of a boy who had humiliated him in front of his kafo
mates; how to whistle through his fingers (though Lamin’s best
whistle was nowhere near as piercing as Kunta’s; and he
showed him the kind of berry leaves from which their mother
liked to make tea. And he cautioned Lamin to take the big,
shiny dung beetles they always saw crawling in the hut and set
them gently outside on the ground, for it was very bad luck to
harm them. To touch a rooster’s spur, he told him, was even
worse luck. But however hard he tried, Kunta couldn’t make
Lamin understand how to tell the time of day by the position of
the sun. “You’re just too little, but you’ll learn.” Kunta would still
shout at him sometimes, if Lamin seemed too slow in learning
something simple; or he would give him a slap if he was too
much of a pest. But he would always feel so badly about it that
he might even let the naked Lamin wear his dundiko for a
while. As he grew closer to his brother, Kunta began to feel
less deeply something that had often bothered him before–the
gulf between his eight rains and the older boys and men of
Juffure. Indeed, scarcely a day of his life that he could
remember had ever passed without something to remind him
that he was still of the second kafo–one who yet slept in the
hut of his mother. The older boys who were away now at
manhood training had always had nothing but sneers and
cuffings for those of Kunta’s age. And the grown men, such as
Omoro and the other fathers, acted as if a second-kafo boy
were something merely to be tolerated. As for the mothers,
well, often when Kunta was out in the bush, he would think
angrily that whenever he got to be a man, he certainly
intended to put Binta in her place as a woman–although he
did intend to show her kindness and forgiveness, since after
all, she was his mother. Most irritating of all to Kunta and his
mates, though, was how the second-kafo girls with whom they
had grown up were now so quick to remind them that they
were thinking already of becoming wives. It rankled Kunta that
girls married at fourteen rains or even younger, while boys
didn’t get married until they were men of thirty rains or more. In
general, being of the second kafo had always been an
embarrassment to Kunta and his mates, except for their
afternoons off by themselves in the bush, and in Kunta’s case,
his new relationship with Lamin. Every time he and his brother
would be walking somewhere by themselves, Kunta would
imagine that he was taking Lamin on some journey, as men
sometimes did with their sons. Now, somehow, Kunta felt a
special responsibility to act older, with Lamin looking up to
him as a source of knowledge. Walking alongside, Lamin
would ply Kunta with a steady stream of questions. “What’s
the world like?” “Well,” said Kunta, “no man or canoes ever
journeyed so far. And no one knows all there is to know about
it.” “What do you learn from the arafang?” Kunta recited the
first verses of the Koran in Arabic and then said, “Now you
try.” But when Lamin tried, he got badly confused–as Kunta
had known he would–and Kunta said paternally, “It takes
time.” “Why does no one harm owls?” “Because all our dead
ancestors’ spirits are in owls.” Then he told Lamin something
of their late Grandma Yaisa. “You were just a baby, and cannot
remember her.” “What’s that bird in the tree?” “A hawk.”
“What does he eat?” “Mice and other birds and things.” “Oh.”
Kunta had never realized how much he knew–but now and
then Lamin asked something of which Kunta knew nothing at
all. “Is the sun on fire?” Or: “Why doesn’t our father sleep with
us?” At such times, Kunta would usually grunt, then stop
talking–as Omoro did when he tired of so many of Kunta’s
questions. Then Lamin would say no more, since Mandinka
home training taught that one never talked to another who did
not want to talk. Sometimes Kunta would act as if he had gone
into deep private thought. Lamin would sit silently nearby, and
when Kunta rose, so would he. And sometimes, when Kunta
didn’t know the answer to a question, he would quickly do
something to change the subject. Always, at his next chance,
Kunta would wait until Lamin was out of the hut and then ask
Binta or Omoro the answer he needed for Lamin. He never
told them why he asked them both so many questions, but it
seemed as if they knew. In fact, they seemed to act as if they
had begun to regard, Kunta as an older person, since he had
taken on more responsibility with his little brother. Before long,
Kunta was speaking sharply to Lamin in Binta’s presence
about things done wrongly. “You must talk clearly!” he might
say with a snap of his fingers. Or he might whack Lamin for
not jumping swiftly enough to do anything his mother had
ordered him to do. Binta acted as if she neither saw nor
heard. So Lamin made few moves now without either his
mother’s or his brother’s sharp eyes upon him. And Kunta now
had only to ask Binta or Omoro any questions of Lamin’s and
they immediately told him the answer. “Why is father’s
bullock’s hide mat of that red color? A bullock isn’t red.” “I
dyed the hide of the bullock with lye and crushed millet.”
replied Binta. “Where does Allah live?” “Allah lives where the
sun comes from,” said Omoro.
CHAPTER 16
“What are slaves?” Lamin asked Kunta one afternoon. Kunta
grunted and fell silent. Walking on, seemingly lost in thought,
he was wondering what Lamin had overheard to prompt that
question. Kunta knew that those who were taken by toubob
became slaves, and he had overheard grownups talking
about slaves who were owned by people in Juffure. But the
fact was that he really didn’t know what slaves were. As had
happened so many other times, Lam- in’s question
embarrassed him into finding out more. The next day, when
Omoro was getting ready to go out after some palm wood to
build Binta a new food storehouse, Kunta asked to join his
father; he loved to go off anywhere with Omoro. But neither
spoke this day until they had almost reached the dark, cool
palm grove.
Then Kunta asked abruptly,
“Fa, what are slaves?” Omoro just grunted at first, saying
nothing, and for several minutes moved about in the grove,
inspecting the trunks of different palms. “Slaves aren’t always
easy to tell from those who aren’t slaves,” he said finally.
Between blows of his bush ax against the palm he had
selected, he told Kunta that slaves’ huts were roofed with
nyantang jon go and free people’s huts with nyantang foro,
which Kunta knew was the best quality of thatching grass. “But
one should never speak of slaves in the presence of slaves,”
said Omoro, looking very stern. Kunta didn’t understand why,
but he nodded as if he did. When the palm tree fell, Omoro
began chopping away its thick, tough fronds. As Kunta
plucked off for himself some of the ripened fruits, he sensed
his father’s mood of willingness to talk today. He thought
happily how now he would be able to explain to Lamin all
about slaves. “Why are some people slaves and others not?”
he asked. Omoro said that people became slaves in different
ways. Some were born of slave mothers–and he named a few
of those who lived in Juffure, people whom Kunta knew well.
Some of them were the parents of some of his own kafo
mates. Others, said Omoro, had once faced starvation during
their home villages’ hungry season, and they had come to
Juffure and begged to become the slaves of someone who
agreed to feed and provide for them. Still others–and he
named some of Juffure’s older people–had once been
enemies and been captured as prisoners. “They become
slaves, being not brave enough to die rather than be taken,”
said Omoro. He had begun chopping the trunk of the palm into
sections of a size that a strong man could carry. Though all he
had named were slaves, he said, they were all respected
people, as Kunta well knew. “Their rights are guaranteed by
the laws of our forefathers,” said Omoro, and he explained
that all masters had to provide their slaves with food, clothing,
a house, a farm plot to work on half shares, and also a wife or
husband. “Only those who permit themselves to be are
despised,” he told Kunta–those who had been made slaves
because they were convicted murderers, thieves, or other
criminals. These were the only slaves whom a master could
beat or otherwise punish, as he felt they deserved. “Do slaves
have to remain slaves always?” asked Kunta. “No, many
slaves buy their freedom with what they save from farming on
half share with their masters.” Omoro named some in Juffure
who had done this. He named others who had won their
freedom by marrying into the family that owned them. To help
him carry the heavy sections of palm, Omoro made a stout
sling out of green vines, and as he worked, he said that some
slaves, in fact, prospered beyond their masters. Some had
even taken slaves for themselves, and some had become
very famous persons. “Sundiata was one!” exclaimed Kunta.
Many times, he had heard the grandmothers and the griots
speaking of the great forefather slave general whose army
had conquered so many enemies. Omoro grunted and
nodded, clearly pleased that Kunta knew this, for Omoro also
had learned much of Sundiata when he was Kunta’s age.
Testing his son, Omoro asked, “And who was Sundiata’s
mother?” “Sogolon, the Buffalo Woman!” said Kunta proudly.
Omoro smiled, and hoisting onto his strong shoulders two
heavy sections of the palm pole within the vine sling, he began
walking. Eating his palm fruits, Kunta followed, and nearly all
the way back to the village, Omoro told him how the great
Mandinka Empire had been won by the crippled, brilliant slave
general whose army had begun with runaway slaves found in
swamps and other hiding places. “You will learn much more of
him when you are in manhood training,” said Omoro–and the
very thought of that time sent a fear through Kunta, but also a
thrill of anticipation. Omoro said that Sundiata had run away
from his hated master, as most slaves did who didn’t like their
masters. He said that except for convicted criminals, no
slaves could be sold unless the slaves approved of the
intended master. “Grandmother Nyo Boto also is a slave,”
said Omoro, and Kunta almost swallowed a mouthful of palm
fruit. He couldn’t comprehend this. Pictures flashed across his
mind of beloved old Nyo Boto squatting before the door of her
hut, tending the village’s twelve or fifteen naked babies while
weaving baskets of twigs, and giving the sharp side of her
tongue to any passing adult–even the elders, if she felt like it.
“That one is nobody’s slave,” he thought. The next afternoon,
after he had delivered his goats to their pens, Kunta took
Lamin home by a way that avoided their usual playmates, and
soon they squatted silently before the hut of Nyo Boto. Within
a few moments the old lady appeared in her doorway, having
sensed that she had visitors. And’with but a glance at Kunta,
who had always been one of her very favorite children, she
knew that something special was on his mind. Inviting the
boys inside her hut, she set about the brewing of some hot
herb tea for them. “How are your papa and mama?” she
asked. “Fine. Thank you for asking,” said Kunta politely. “And
you are well. Grandmother? ” “I’m quite fine, indeed,” she
replied. Kunta’s next words didn’t come until the tea had been
set before him.
Then he blurted,
“Why are you a slave, Grandmother?” Nyo Boto looked
sharply at Kunta and Lamin. Now it was she who didn’t speak
for a few moments. “I will tell you,” she said finally. “In my home
village one night, very far from here and many rains ago, when
I was a young woman and wife,” Nyo Boto said, she had
awakened in terror as naming grass roofs came crashing
down among her screaming neighbors. Snatching up her own
two babies, a boy and a girl, whose father had recently died in
a tribal war, she rushed out among the others–and awaiting
them were armed white slave raiders with their black slatee
helpers. In a furious battle, all who didn’t escape were roughly
herded together, and those who were too badly injured or too
old or too young to travel were murdered before the others’
eyes, Nyo Boto began to sob, “–including my own two babies
and my aged mother.” As Lamin and Kunta clutched each
other’s hands, she told them how the terrified prisoners, bound
neck-to-neck with thongs, were beaten and driven across the
hot, hard inland country for many days. And every day, more
and more of the prisoners fell beneath the whips that lashed
their backs to make them walk faster. After a few days, yet
more began to fall of hunger and exhaustion. Some struggled
on, but those who couldn’t were left for the wild animals to get.
The long line of prisoners passed other villages that had been
burned and ruined, where the skulls and bones of people and
animals lay among the burned-out shells of thatch and mud
that had once been family huts. Fewer than half of those who
had begun the trip reached the village of Juffure, four days
from the nearest place on the Kamby Bolongo where slaves
were sold. “It was here that one young prisoner was sold for a
bag of corn,” said the old woman. “That Was me. And this was
how I came to be called Nyo Boto,” which Kunta knew meant
“bag of corn.” The man who bought her for his own slave died
before very long, she said, “and I have lived here ever since.”
Lamin was wriggling in excitement at the story, and Kunta felt
somehow even greater love and appreciation than he had felt
before for old Nyo Boto, who now sat smiling tenderly at the
two boys, whose father and mother, like them, she had once
dandled on her knee. “Omoro, your papa, was of the first kafo
when I came to Juffure,” said Nyo Boto, looking directly at
Kunta. “Yaisa, his mother, who was your grandmother, was my
very good friend. Do you remember her?” Kunta said that he
did and added proudly that he had told his little brother about
their grandma. “That is good!” said Nyo Boto. “Now I must get
back to work. Run along, now.” Thanking her for the tea, Kunta
and Lamin left and walked slowly back to Binta’s hut, each
deep in his own private thoughts. The next afternoon, when
Kunta returned from his goat- herding, he found Lamin filled
with questions about Nyo Boto’s story. Had any such fire ever
burned in Juffure? he wanted to know. Well, he had never
heard of any, said Kunta, and the village showed no signs of it.
Had Kunta ever seen one of those white people? “Of course
not!” he exclaimed. But he said that their father had spoken of
a time when he and his brothers had sees the-toubob and
their ships at a point along the river. Kunta quickly changed
the subject, for he knew very little about toubob, and he
wanted to think about them for himself. He wished that he
could see one of them–from a safe distance, of course, since
everything he’d ever heard about them made it plain that
people were better off who never got too close to them. Only
recently a girl out gathering herbs–and before her two grown
men out hunting–had disappeared, and every- 1 one was
certain that toubob had stolen them away. He remembered of
course, how when drums of other villages | warned that toubob
had either taken somebody or was 1 known to be near, the
men would arm themselves and | mount a double guard while
the frightened women quickly gathered all of the children and
hid in the bush far from the village–sometimes for several
days–until the toubob was felt to be gone. Kunta recalled once
when he was out with his goats in the quiet of the bush, sitting
under his favorite shade tree. He had happened to look
upward and there, to his astonishment, in the tree overhead,
were twenty or thirty mon keys huddled along the thickly
leaved branches as still as statues, with their long tails
hanging down. Kunta had always thought of monkeys rushing
noisily about, and he couldn’t forget how quietly they had been
watching his every move. He wished that now he might sit in a
tree and watch some toubob on the ground below him. The
goats were being driven homeward the afternoon after Lamin
had asked him about toubob when Kunta raised the subject
among his fellow goatherds–and in no time they were telling
about the things they had heard. One boy, Demba Conteh,
said that a very brave uncle had once gone close enough to
smell some toubob, and they had a peculiar stink. All of the
boys had heard that toubob took people away to eat them. But
some had heard that the toubob claimed the stolen people
were not eaten, only put to work on huge farms. Sitafa. Silla
spat out his grandfather’s answer to that: “White man’s lie!”
The next chance he had, Kunta asked Omoro, “Papa, will you
tell me how you and your brothers saw the tou- bob at the
river?” Quickly, he added, “The matter needs to be told
correctly to Lamin.” It seemed to Kunta that his father nearly
smiled, but Omoro only grunted, evidently not feeling like
talking at that moment. But a few days later, Omoro casually
invited both Kunta and Lamin to go with him out beyond the
village to collect some roots he needed. It was the naked
Lamin’s first walk anywhere with his father, and he was
overjoyed. Knowing that Kunta’s influence had brought this
about, he held tightly onto the tail of his big brother’s dundiko.
Omoro told his sons that after their manhood training, his two
older brothers Janneh and Saloum had left Juffure, and the
passing of time brought news of them as well- known travelers
in strange and distant places. Their first return home came
when drum talk all the way from Juffure told them of the birth of
Omoro’s first son. They spent sleepless days and nights on
the trail to attend the naming ceremony. And gone from home
so long, the brothers joyously embraced some of their kafo
mates of boyhood. But those few sadly told of others gone
and lost—some in burned villages, some killed by fearsome
fire sticks some kidnaped, some missing while farming,
hunting, or traveling–and all because of toubob. Omoro said
that his brothers had then angrily asked him to join them on a
trip to see what the toubob were doing, to see what might be
done. So the three brothers trekked for three days along the
banks of the Kamby Bolongo, keeping carefully concealed in
the bush, until they found what they were looking for. About
twenty great toubob canoes were moored in the river, each
big enough that its insides might hold all the people of Juffure,
each with a huge white cloth tied by ropes to a tree like pole
as tall as ten men. Nearby was an island, and on the island
was a fortress. Many toubob were moving about, and black
helpers were with them, both on the fortress and in small
canoes. The small canoes were taking such things as dried
indigo, cotton, beeswax, and hides to the big canoes. More
terrible than he could describe, however, said Omoro, were
the heatings and other cruelties they saw being dealt out to
those who had been captured for the toubob to take away. For
several moments, Omoro was quiet, and Kunta sensed that
he was pondering something else to tell him. Finally he spoke:
“Not as many of our people are being taken away now as
then.” When Kunta was a baby, he said, the King of Barra,
who ruled this part of The Gambia, had ordered that there
would be no more burning of villages with the capturing or
killing of all their people. And soon it did stop, after the
soldiers of some angry kings had burned the big canoes
down to the wate i killing all the toubob on board. “Now,” said
Omoro, “nineteen guns are fired in salute to the King of Barra
by every toubob canoe entering the Kamby Bolongo.” He said
that the King’s personal agents now supplied most of the
people whom the toubob took away–usually criminals or
debtors, or anyone convicted for suspicion of plotting against
the king–often for little more than whispering. More people
seemed to get convicted of crimes, said Omoro, whenever
toubob ships sailed in the Kamby Bolongo looking for slaves
to buy. “But even a king cannot stop the stealings of some
people from their villages,” Omoro continued. “You have
known some of those lost from our village, three from among
us just within the past few moons, as you know, and you have
heard the drum talk from other villages.” He looked hard at his
sons, and spoke slowly. “The things I’m going to tell you now,
you must hear with more than your ears for not to do what I say
can mean your being stolen away forever!” Kunta and Lamin
listened with rising fright. “Never be alone when you can help
it,” said Omoro; “Never be out at night when you can help it.
And day or night, when you’re alone, keep away from any high
weeds or bush if you can avoid it.” For the rest of their lives,
“even when you have come to be men,” said their father, they
must be on guard for toubob. “He often shoots his fire sticks
which can be heard far off. And wherever you see much
smoke away from any villages, it is probably his cooking fires,
which are too big. You should closely inspect his signs to learn
which way the toubob went. Having much heavier footsteps
than we do, he leaves signs you will recognize as not ours: He
breaks twigs and grasses. And when you get close where he
has been, you will find that his scent remains there. It’s like a
wet chicken smells. And many say a toubob sends forth a
nervousness that we can feel. If you feel that, become quiet,
for often he can be detected at some distance. ” But it’s not
enough to know the toubob, said Omoro. “Many of our own
people work for him. They are slatee traitors. But without
knowing them, there is no way to recognize them. In the bush,
therefore, trust no one you don’t know.” Kunta and Lamin sat
frozen with fear. “You cannot be told these things strongly
enough,” said their father. “You must know what your uncles
and I saw happening tp those who had been stolen. It is the
difference between slaves among ourselves and those whom
toubob takes away to be slaves for him.” He said that they
saw stolen people chained inside long, stout, heavily guarded
bamboo pens along the shore of the river. When small canoes
brought important- acting toubob from the big canoes, the
stolen people were dragged outside their pens onto the sand.
“Their heads had been shaved, and they had been greased
until they shined all over. First they were made to squat and
jump up and down,” said Omoro. “And then, when the toubob
had seen enough of that, they ordered the stolen people’s
mouths forced open for their teeth and their throats to be
looked at.” Swiftly, Omoro’s finger touched Kunta’s crotch, and
as Kunta jumped, Omoro said, “Then the men’s foto was
pulled and looked at. Even the women’s private parts were
inspected. ” And the toubob finally made the people squat
again and stuck burning hot irons against their backs and
shoulders. Then, screaming and struggling, the people were
shipped toward the water, where small canoes waited to take
them out to the big canoes. “My brothers and I watched many
fall onto their bellies, clawing and eating the sand, as if to get
one last hold and bite of their own home,” said Omoro. “But
they were dragged and beaten on.” Even in the small canoes
out in the water, he told Kunta and Lamin, some kept fighting
against the whips and the clubs until they jumped into the
water among terrible long fish with gray backs and white
bellies and curved mouths full of thrashing teeth that reddened
the water with their blood. Kunta and Lamin had huddled close
to each other, each gripping the other’s hands. “It’s better that
you know these things than that your mother and I kill the white
cock one day for you.” Omoro looked at his sons. “Do you
know what that means?” Kunta managed to nod, and found
his voice. “When someone is missing, Fa?” He had seen
families frantically chanting to Allah as they squatted around a
white cock bleeding and flapping with its throat slit. “Yes,” said
Omoro. “If the white cock dies on its breast, hope remains.
But when a white cock flaps to death on its back, then no hope
remains, and the whole village joins the family in crying to
Allah.” “Fa”–Lamin’s voice, squeaky with fear, startled Kunta,
“where do the big canoes take the stolen people?” “The
elders say to Jong Sang Doo,” said Omoro, “a land where
slaves are sold to huge cannibals called toubabo koomi, who
eat us. No man knows any more about it.”
CHAPTER 17
So frightened was Lamin by his father’s talk of slave-taking
and white cannibals that he awakened Kunta several times
that night with his bad dreams. And the next day, when Kunta
returned from goat herding he decided to turn his little
brother’s mind–and his own–from such thoughts by telling him
about their distinguished uncles. “Our father’s brothers are
also the sons of Kairaba Kunta Kinte, for whom I am named,”
said Kunta proudly. “But our uncles Janneh and Saloum were
born of Sireng,” he said. Lamin looked puzzled, but Kunta
kept on explaining. “Sireng was our grandfather’s first wife,
who died before he married our Grandma YaisaJ’ Kunta
arranged twigs on the ground to show the Kinte family’s
different individuals. But he could see that Lamin still didn’t
understand. With a sigh, he began to talk instead of their
uncles’ adventures, which Kunta himself had thrilled to so often
when his father had told of them. “Our uncles have never taken
wives for themselves because their love of traveling is so
great,” said Kunta. “For moons on end, they travel under the
sun and sleep under the stars. Our father says they have been
where the sun burns upon endless sand, a land where there is
never any rain.” In another place their uncles had visited, said
Kunta, the trees were so thick that the forests were dark as
night even in the daytime. The people of this place were no
taller than Lamin, and like Lamin, always went naked–even
after they grew up. And they killed huge elephants with tiny,
poisoned darts. In still another place, a land of giants, Janneh
and Saloum had seen warriors who could throw their hunting
spears twice as far as the mightiest Mandinka, and dancers
who could leap higher than their own heads, which were six
hands higher than the tallest man in Juffure. Before bedtime,
as Lamin watched with wide eyes, Kunta acted out his favorite
of all the stories–springing suddenly about with an imaginary
sword slashing up and down, as if Lamin were one of the
bandits whom their uncles and others had fought off every day
on a journey of many moons, heavily laden with elephants’
teeth, precious stones, and gold, to the great black city of
Zimbabwe. Lamin begged for more stories, but Kunta told him
to go to sleep. Whenever Kunta had been made to go to bed
after his father told him such tales, he would lie on his mat–as
his little brother now would–with his mind making the uncles’
stories into pictures. And sometimes Kunta would even dream
that he was traveling with his uncles to all the strange places,
that he was talking with the people who looked and acted and
lived so differently from the Mandinkas. He had only to hear
the names of his uncles and his heart would quicken. A few
days later, it happened that their names reached Juffure in a
manner so exciting that Kunta could hardly contain himself. It
was a hot, quiet afternoon, and just about everyone in the
village was sitting outside his hut’s doorway or in the shade of
the baobab–when suddenly there came a sharp burst of drum
talk from the next village. Like the grownups, Kunta and Lamin
cocked their heads’ intently to read what the drum was saying.
Lamin gasped aloud when he heard his own father’s name.
He wasn’t old enough to understand the rest, so Kunta
whispered the news it brought: Five days of walking in the way
the sun rose, Janneh and Saloum Kinte were building a new
village. And their brother Omoro was expected for the
ceremonial blessing of the village on the second next new
moon. The drum talk stopped; Lamin was full of questions.
“Those are our uncles? Where is that place? Will our fa go
there?” Kunta didn’t reply. Indeed, as Kunta dashed off across
the village toward the hut of the jaliba, he barely heard his
brother. Other people were already gathering there–and then
came Omoro, with the big-bellied Binta behind him. Everyone
watched as Omoro and the jaliba spoke briefly, and Omoro
gave him a gift. The talking drum lay near a small fire, where
its goatskin head was heating to extreme tautness. Soon the
crowd looked on as the jaliba’s hands pounded out Omoro’s
reply that, Allah willing, he would be in his brothers’ new village
before the second next new moon. Omoro went nowhere
during the next days without other villagers pressing upon him
their congratulations and their blessings for the new village,
which history would record as founded by the Kinte clan. It
wasn’t many days before Omoro was to depart when an idea
that was almost too big to think about seized upon Kunta. Was
it remotely possible that his papa might let him share the
journey? Kunta could think of nothing else. Noticing his
unusual quietness, Kunta’s fellow goatherds, even Sitafa, left
him alone. And toward his adoring little brother, he became so
short-tempered that even Lamin drew away, hurt and puzzled.
Kunta knew how he was acting and felt badly, but he couldn’t
help himself. He knew that now and then some lucky boy was
allowed to share a journey with his father, uncle, or grownup
brother. But he also knew that such boys had never been so
young as his eight rains, except for some fatherless boys, who
got special privileges under the forefathers’ laws. Such a boy
could start following closely behind any man, and the man
would never object to sharing whatever he had–even if he was
on a journey lasting for moons–so long as the boy followed
him at exactly two paces, did everything he was told, never
complained, and never spoke unless spoken to. Kunta knew
not to let anyone, especially his mother, even suspect what he
dreamed of. He felt certain that not only would Binta
disapprove, but she would also probably forbid his ever
mentioning it again, and that would mean Omoro would never
know how desperately Kunta hoped he could go. So Kunta
knew that his only hope lay in asking Pa himself–if he could
ever catch him alone. There were soon but three days before
Omoro was to leave, and the watchful, almost despairing
Kunta was herding his goats after breakfast when he saw his
father leaving Binta’s hut. Instantly he began maneuvering his
goats into milling back and forth, going nowhere, until Omoro
had gone on in a direction and to a distance that Binta surely
wouldn’t see. Then, leaving his goats alone, because he had
to take the chance, Kunta ran like a hare and came to a
breathless stop and looked up pleadingly at his father’s
startled face. Gulping, Kunta couldn’t remember a single thing
he had meant to say. Omoro looked down at his son for a long
moment, and then he spoke. “I have just told your mother,” he
said–and walked on. It took Kunta a few seconds to realize
what his father meant. “Aieee!” Kunta shouted, not even
aware that he had shouted. Dropping onto his belly, he sprang
froglike into the air–and bolting back to his goats, sent them
racing toward the bush. When he collected himself enough to
tell his fellow goat- herds what had happened, they were so
jealous that they went off by themselves. But by midday they
could no longer resist the chance to share with him the
excitement of such wonderful luck. By that time he had fallen
silent with the realization that ever since the drum talk
message had come, his father had been thinking about his
son. Late that afternoon, when Kunta raced happily home and
into his mother’s hut, Binta grabbed him without a word and
began to cuff him so hard that Kunta fled, not daring to ask
what he had done. And her manner changed suddenly toward
Omoro in a way that shocked Kunta almost as much. Even
Lamin knew that a woman was absolutely never allowed to
disrespect a man, but with Omoro standing where he could
plainly hear her, Binta loudly muttered her disapproval of his
and Kunta’s traveling in the bush when the drums of different
villages were reporting regularly of new people missing.
Fixing the breakfast couscous, she pounded the pestle into
the mortar so furiously that the sound was like drums. As
Kunta was hurrying out of the hut the next day–to avoid
another whacking–Binta commanded Lamin to stay behind
and began to kiss and pat and hug him as she hadn’t done
since he was a baby. Lamin’s eyes told Kunta his
embarrassment, but there was nothing either of them could do
about it. When Kunta was outside the hut away from his
mother, practically every adult who saw him offered
congratulations upon his being Juffure’s youngest boy ever
given the honor of sharing an elder’s long journey. Modestly,
Kunta said, “Thank you,” reflecting his proper home-training–
but once out in the bush beyond the sight of grownups, he
pranced under an extra-large head bundle he had brought
along to show his mates how well he balanced it–and would
balance it the next morning when he strutted past he travelers’
tree behind his father. It fell to the ground hree times before he
took as many steps. On his way homeward, with many things
he wanted to lo around the village before leaving, Kunta felt a
strange ull to visit old Nyo Boto before doing anything else.
\after delivering his goats, he escaped from Binta’s hut as
Illicitly as he could and went to squat before Nyo Boto’s.
Shortly she appeared in her doorway. “I have expected tou,”
she said, inviting him inside. As usual, whenever (until visited
her alone, the two of them just sat quietly ‘or a while. He had
always liked and looked forward to hat feeling. Although he
was very young and she was very rid, they still felt very close to
each other, just sitting there n the dim hut, each of them
thinking private thoughts. “I have something for you,” said Nyo
Boto finally. Mov- ng to the dark pouch of cured bullock’s hide
that hung Torn the wall by her bed, she withdrew a dark sap
hie charm of the kind that encircled one’s upper arm. “Your
grandfather blessed this charm when your father went to maniood
training,” said Nyo Boto. “It was blessed for the manlood
training of Omoro’s first son–yourself. Your Grand- na
Yaisa left it with me for when your manhood training would
start. And that is really this journey with your fa.” Cunta looked
with love at the dear old grandmother, but ie couldn’t think of a
right way to say how the sap hie harm would make him feel
that she was with him no mater how far away he went. The
next morning, returning from prayers at the mosque, Dmoro
stood waiting impatiently as Binta took her time: ompleting the
adjustment of Kunta’s head load When Cunta had laid awake
too filled with excitement to sleep hrough the night, he had
heard her sobbing. Then suddenly he was hugging Kunta so
hard that he could feel her body rembling, and he knew, more
than ever before in his life, low much his mother really loved
him. With his friend Sitafa, Kunta had carefully reviewed md
practiced what he and his father now did: First Omoro nd then
Kunta made two steps out into the dust beyond he doorway of
his hut. Then, stopping and turning and lending down, they
scraped up the dust of their first footprints and put it into their
hunters’ bags, thus insuring that heir footprints would return to
that place. Binta watched, weeping, from her hut’s doorway,
pressing Lamin against her big belly, as Omoro and Kunta
walked away. Kunta started to turn for a last look–but seeing
that his father didn’t, kept his eyes front and marched on,
remembering that it wasn’t proper for a man to show his
emotions. As they walked through the village, the people they
passed spoke to them and smiled, and Kunta waved at his
kafo mates, who had delayed their rounding up of the goats in
order to see him off. He knew they understood that he didn’t
return their spoken greetings because any talking now was
taboo for him. Reaching the travelers’ tree, they stopped, and
Omoro added two more narrow cloth strips to the weathertattered
hundreds already hanging from the lower limbs, each
strip representing the prayer of a traveler that his journey
would be safe and blessed. Kunta couldn’t believe it was
really happening. It was the first time in his life he would spend
a night away from his mother’s hut, the first time he would ever
go farther from the gates of Juffure than one of his goats had
strayed, the first time–for so many things. While Kunta was
thus preoccupied, Omoro had turned and without a word or a
backward glance, started walking very fast down the path into
the forest. Almost dropping his head load Kunta raced to
catch up with him.
CHAPTER 18
Kunta found himself nearly trotting to keep the proper two
paces behind Omoro. He saw that almost two of his quick,
short steps were necessary for each long, smooth stride of his
father. After about an hour of this, Kunta’s excitement had
waned almost as much as his pace. His head bundle began
to feel heavier and heavier, and he had a terrible thought:
Suppose he grew so tired he couldn’t keep up? Fiercely, he
told himself he would drop in his tracks before that would
happen. Here and there, as they passed, snuffling wild pigs
would go rushing into the underbrush, and partridges would
whir up, and rabbits would bound for cover. But Kunta wouldn’t
have paid an elephant much attention in his determination to
keep up with Omoro. The muscles below Kunta’s knees were
beginning to ache a little. His face was sweating, and so was
his head; he could tell by the way his bundle began sliding off
balance, a little bit one way or the other, and he kept having to
put both his hands up there to readjust it. Ahead, after a while,
Kunta saw that they were approaching the travelers’ tree of
some small village. He wondered what village it was; he was
sure he would know its name if his father said it, but Omoro
had neither spoken nor looked back ever since they left
Juffure. A few minutes later, Kunta saw dashing out to meet
them–as he himself had once done–some naked children of
the first kafo. They were waving and hallooing, and when they
got closer, he could see their eyes widen at the sight of one so
young traveling with his father. “Where are you going?” they
chattered, scampering on either side of Kunta. “Is he your fa7”
“Are you Mandinka?” “What’s your village?” Weary as he was,
Kunta felt very mature and important, ignoring them just as his
father was doing. Near every travelers’ tree, the trail would
fork, one leading on into the village and the other past it, so
that a person with no business there could pass on by without
being considered rude. As Omoro and Kunta took the fork that
passed by this village, the little children exclaimed unhappily,
but the grownups seated under the village baobab only threw
glances at the travelers, for. holding every- one’s attention was
a griot whom Kunta could hear loudly orating about the
greatness of Mandinkas. There would be many griots, praise
singers, and musicians at the blessing of his uncles’ new
village, Kunta thought. The sweat began to run into Kunta’s
eyes, making him blink to stop the stinging. Since they had
begun walking, the sun had crossed only half the sky, but his
legs already hurt so badly, and his head load had become so
heavy, that he began to think he wasn’t going to make it. A
feeling of panic was rising in him when Omoro suddenly
stopped and swung his head load to the ground alongside a
clear pool at the side of the trail. Kunta stood for a moment
trying to control his unsteady legs. He clutched his head
bundle to take it down, but it slipped from his fingers and fell
with a bump. Mortified, he knew his father had heard–but
Omoro was on his knees drinking from the spring, without a
sign that his son was even there. Kunta hadn’t realized how
thirsty he was. Hobbling over to the water’s edge, he kneeled
down to drink–but his legs refused the position. After trying
again in vain, he finally lay down on his stomach, braced
himself on his elbows, and managed to lower his mouth to the
water. “Just a little.” It was the first time his father had spoken
since they left Juffure, and it shocked Kunta. “Swallow a little,
wait, then a little more.” For some reason, he felt angry toward
his father. “Yes, Fa,” he intended to say, but no sound came.
He sipped some cool water and swallowed it. Making himself
wait, he wanted to collapse. After sipping a little more, he sat
up and rested beside the pool. The thought passed through
his mind that manhood training must be something like this.
And then, sitting upright, he drifted off to sleep. When he
awakened with a start–how long had it been?–Omoro was
nowhere to be seen. Jumping up, Kunta saw the big head
load under a nearby tree; so his father wouldn’t be far away.
As he began to look around, he realized how sore he was. He
shook himself and stretched. The muscles hurt, but he felt
much better than he had. Kneeling for a few more gulps of
water from the spring, Kunta noticed his reflection m the still
surface of the pool–a narrow black face with wide eyes and
mouth. Kunta smiled at himself, then grinned with all his teeth
showing. He couldn’t help laughing, and as he looked up–
there was Omoro standing at his side. Kunta sprang up,
embarrassed, but his father’s attention seemed to be on other
things. In the shade of some trees, neither of them speaking a
word, as the monkeys chattered and the parrots screeched
above their heads, they ate some of the bread from their head
loads along with the four plump wood pigeons Omoro had
shot with his bow and roasted while Kunta slept. As they ate,
Kunta told himself that the first time there was any chance, he
was going to show his father how well he too could kill and
cook food, the way he and his kafo mates did out in the bush.
When they finished eating, the sun was three fourths across
the sky, so it wasn’t as hot when the head loads were rctied
and readjusted on their heads and they set out on the trail
once again. “Toubob brings his canoes one day of walking
from here,” said Omoro when they had gone a good distance.
“Now is daytime when we can see, but we must avoid high
bush and grass, which can hide surprises.” Omoro’s fingers
touched his knife sheath and his bow and arrows. “Tonight we
must sleep in a village.” With his father, he need not fear, of
course, but Kunta felt a flash of fright after a lifetime of hearing
people and drums tell of disappearances and stealings. As
they walked on–a little faster now–Kunta noticed hyena dung
on the trail, its color lily-white because hyenas with their strong
jaws cracked and ate so many bones. And beside the path,
their approach caused a herd of antelope to stop eating and
stand like statues, watching until the humans had passed by.
“Elephants!” said Omoro a little later, and Kunta saw the
surrounding trampled bush, the young saplings stripped to
bare bark and limbs, and some half-uprooted trees the
elephants had leaned on to push the topmost tender leaves
downward where they could reach them with their trunks.
Since elephants never grazed near villages and people, Kunta
had seen only a few of them in his life, and then only from a
great distance. They had been among the thousands of forest
animals that ran together, sounding like thunder, ahead of
frightening black smoke clouds when a great fire had swept
across the brush land once when Kunta was very young; but
Allah’s rain had put it out before it harmed Juffure or any other
nearby villages. As they trudged along the seemingly endless
trail, it occurred to Kunta that just as people’s walking feet
made trails, so did spiders spin the long, thin threads they
traveled on. Kunta wondered if Allah willed matters for the
insects and the animals as He did for people; it surprised him
to realize he never had thought about that before. He wished
he could ask Omoro about it right now. He was even more
surprised that Lamin hadn’t asked him about it, for Lamin had
asked him about even smaller matters than insects. Well, he
would have much to tell his little brother when he returned to
Juffure–enough to fill days out in the bush with his fellow
goatherds for moons to come. It seemed to Kunta that he and
Omoro were entering a different kind of country than the one
where they lived. The sinking sun shone down on heavier
grasses than he had ever seen before, and among the
familiar trees were large growths of palm and cactus. Apart
from the biting flies, the only flying things he saw here were not
pretty parrots and birds such as those that squawked and
sang around Juffure, but circling hawks in search of prey and
vultures hunting for food already dead. The orange ball of the
sun was nearing the earth when Omoro and Kunta sighted a
thick trail of smoke from a village up ahead. As they reached
the travelers’ tree, even. Kunta could tell that something wasn’t
right. Very few prayer strips hung from the limbs, showing that
few of those who lived here ever left their village and that most
travelers from other villages had taken the trail that passed it
by. Alas, no children came running out to meet them. As they
passed by the village baobab, Kunta saw that it was partly
burned. Over half of the mud huts he could see were empty;
trash was in the yards; rabbits were hopping about; and birds
were bathing in the dust. The people of the village–most of
them leaning or lying about in the doorways of their huts–were
almost all old or sick, and a few crying babies seemed to be
the only children. Kunta saw not a person of his age–or even
as young as Omoro. Several wrinkled old men weakly
received the travelers. The eldest among them, rapping his
walking stick, ordered a toothless old woman to bring the
travelers water and couscous; maybe she’s a slave, thought
Kunta. Then the old men began interrupting each other in their
haste to explain what had happened to the village. Slave
takers one night had stolen or killed all of their younger
people, “from your rains to his!” One old man pointed at
Omoro, then at Kunta. “We old they spared. We ran away into
the forest.” Their abandoned. village had begun going to
pieces before they could bring themselves to return. They had
no crops yet, and not much food or strength. “We will die out
without our young people,” said one of the old men. Omoro,
had listened closely as they talked, and his words were slow
as he spoke: “My brothers’ village, which is four days, distant,
will welcome you, grandfathers.” But all of them began
shaking their heads as the eldest said: “This is our village. No
other well has such sweet water. No other trees’ shade is as
pleasant. No other kitchens smell of the cooking of our
women.” The old men apologized that they had no hospitality
hut to offer. Omoro assured them that he and his son enjoyed
sleeping under the stars. And that night, after a simple meal of
bread from their head loads which they shared with the
villagers, Kunta lay on his pallet of green, springy boughs, and
thought about all he had heard. Suppose it had been Juffure,
with everybody he knew dead or taken away–Omoro, Binta,
Lamin, and himself too, and the baobab burned, and the yards
filled with trash. Kunta made himself think about something
else. Then, suddenly, in the darkness, he heard the shrieks of
some forest creature caught by some ferocious animal, and
he thought about people catching other people. In the distance
he could also hear the howling of hyenas–but rainy season or
dry, hungry or harvest, every night of his life, he had heard
hyenas howling somewhere. Tonight he found their familiar cry
almost comforting as he finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 19
In the first light of dawn, Kunta came awake, springing onto his
feet. Standing beside his pallet was a queer old woman
demanding in a high, cracked voice to know what had
happened to the food she had sent him for two moons ago.
Behind Kunta, Omoro spoke softly: “We wish we could tell
you. Grandmother.” As they hurried on beyond the village after
washing and eating, Kunta remembered an old woman in
Juffure who would totter about, peering closely into anyone’s
face and telling him happily, “My daughter arrives tomorrow!”
Her daughter had disappeared many rains before, everyone
knew, and the white cock had died on its back, but all those
she stopped would gently agree, “Yes, Grandmother
tomorrow.” Before the sun was very high, they saw ahead a
lone figure walking toward them on the trail. They had passed
two or three other travelers the day before exchanging smiles
and greetings but this old man, drawing near, made it clear
that he wanted to talk. Pointing from the direction he had
come, he said, “You may see a toubob.” Behind Omoro,
Kunta nearly stopped breathing. “He has many people
carrying his head loads The old man said the toubob had
seen him and stopped him, but only sought help in finding out
where the river began. “I told him the river begins farthest from
where it ends.” “He meant you no harm?” asked Omoro. “He
acted very friendly,” said the old man, “but the cat always eats
the mouse it plays with.” “That’s the truth!” said Omoro, Kunta
wanted to ask his father about this strange toubob who came
looking for rivers rather than for people; but Omoro had bade
farewell to the old man and was walking off down the footpath
as usual, without a glance to see if Kunta was behind him.
This time Kunta was glad, for Omoro would have seen his son
holding onto his head load with both hands while he ran
painfully to catch up. Kunta’s feet had begun to bleed, but he
knew it would be unmanly to take notice of it, let alone mention
it to his father. For the same reason, Kunta swallowed his
terror when, later that day, they rounded a turn and came upon
a family of lions a big male, a beautiful female, and two halfgrown
cubs lounging in a meadow very near the path. To
Kunta, lions were fearsome, slinking animals that would tear
apart a goat that a boy permitted to stray too far in its grazing.
Omoro slowed his pace, and without taking his eyes from the
lions, said quietly, as if sensing his son’s fear, “They don’t hunt
or eat at this time of the day unless they’re hungry. These arefat.”
But he kept one hand on his bow and the other by his
quiver of arrows as they passed by. Kunta held his breath but
kept walking, and he and the lions watched each other until
they were out of sight. He would have continued to think about
them, and about the toubob, also somewhere in the area, but
his aching legs wouldn’t let him. By that night, he would have
ignored twenty lions if they had been feeding at the place
Omoro chose for them to spend the night. Kunta had barely
lain down on his bed of soft branches before he was into a
deep sleep–and it seemed only minutes before his father was
shaking him awake in the early dawn. Though he felt as if he
hadn’t slept at all, Kunta watched with unconcealed admiration
how swiftly Omoro skinned, cleaned, and roasted their
morning meal of two hares, which he had caught in night
snares. As Kunta squatted and ate the tasty meat, he thought
how he and his goat herding mates used up hours of catching
and cooking game, and he wondered how his father and other
men ever found time to ever learn so much–about everything
there was to know, it seemed. His blistered feet, and his legs,
and his back, and his neck all began to hurt again this third
day on the trail–in fact, his whole body seemed to be one dull
ache–but he pretended that manhood training had already
begun and that he would be the last boy in his kafo to betray
his pain. When he stepped on a sharp thorn just before
midday, Kunta bravely bit his lip to avoid crying out, but he
began to limp and fall so far behind that Omoro decided to let
him rest for a few minutes beside the path while they ate their
afternoon meal. The soothing paste his father rubbed into the
wound made it feel better, but soon after they began walking
again, it began to hurt–and bleed–in earnest. Before long,
however, the wound was filled with dirt, so the bleeding
stopped, and the constant walking numbed the pain enough to
let him keep up with his father. Kunta couldn’t be sure, but it
seemed to him that Omoro had slowed down a tiny bit. The
area around the wound was ugly and swollen by the time they
stopped that night, but his father applied another poultice, and
in the morning it looked and felt good enough to bear his
weight without too much pain. Kunta noticed with relief, as
they set out the next day, that they had left behind the thorn and
cactus land they had been traveling through and were moving
into bush country more like Juffure’s, with even more trees and
thickly flowering plants, and more chattering monkeys and
multicolored land birds than he had ever seen before.
Breathing in the fragrant air made Kunta remember times
when he had taken his little brother to catch crabs down along
the banks of the bolong, where he and Lamin would wait to
wave at their mother and the other women rowing homeward
after work in their rice fields. Omoro took the bypass fork at
every travelers’ tree, but each village’s first-kafo children
always raced out to meet them and to tell the strangers
whatever happened to be the most exciting of the local news.
In one such village, the little couriers rushed out yelling,
“Mumbo jumbo! Mumbo jumbo!,” and considering their job
done, fled back inside the village gate. The bypassing trail
went near enough for Omoro and Kunta to see the
townspeople watching a masked and costumed figure
brandishing a rod over the bare back of a screaming woman
whom several other women held. All of the women spectators
were shrieking with each blow of the rod. From discussions
with his fellow goatherds, Kunta knew how a husband, if
enough annoyed by a quarrelsome, trouble making wife, could
go quietly to another village and hire a mumbo jumbo to come
to his village and shout fearsomely at intervals from
concealment, then appear and publicly discipline that wife,
after which all of the village’s women were apt to act better for
a time. At one travelers’ tree, no children came out to meet the
Kintes. In fact, there was no one to be seen at all, and not a
sound was to be heard in the silent village, except for the birds
and monkeys. Kunta wondered if slave takers had come here,
too. He waited in vain for Omoro to explain the mystery, but it
was the chattering children of the next village who did so.
Pointing back down the trail, they said that village’s chief had
kept on doing things his people disliked until one night not
long ago, as he slept, everyone had quietly gone away with all
their possessions to the homes of friends and families in other
places–leaving behind an “empty chief,” the children said,
who was now going about promising to act better if only his
people would return. Since nighttime was near, Omoro
decided to enter this village, and the crowd under the baobab
was abuzz with this exciting gossip. Most felt certain that their
new neighbors would return home after they had taught their
chief his lesson for a few more days. While Kunta stuffed his
stomach with groundnut stew over steamed rice, Omoro went
to the village jaliba and arranged for a talking-drum message
to his brothers. He told them to expect him by the lext sundown
and that traveling with him was his first son. Kunta had
sometimes daydreamed about bearing his lame drumsounding
across the land, and now it had hap- ‘ened. It
wouldn’t leave his ears. Later, on the hospitality [Ut’s bamboo
bed, bone-weary as he was, Kunta thought if the other jalibas
hunched over their drums pounding out us name in every
village along their route to the village of anneh and Saloum. At
every travelers’ tree now, since the drums had sposen, were
not only the usual naked children but also some ilders and
musicians. And Omoro couldn’t refuse a senior ilder’s request
to grant his village the honor of at least a brief visit. As the
Kintes freshened themselves in each hospitality hut and then
sat down to share food and drink in ‘he shade of the baobab
and silk-cotton trees, the adults gathered eagerly to hear
Omoro’s answers to their questions, and the first, second, and
third kafos clustered about Kunta. While the first kafo stared at
him in silent awe, those of Junta’s rains and older, painfully
jealous, asked him re- ipectful questions about his home
village and his des tina- ion. He answered them gravely with,
he hoped, the same iignity as his father did their fathers’
questions. By the ime they left, he was sure the villagers felt
they had seen young man who had spent most of his life
traveling with us father along The Gambia’s long trails.
CHAPTER 20 hey had tarried so long at the last village that
they would have to walk faster and harder to reach their
destination by sundown, as Omoro had promised his
brothers. Though he sweated and ached, Kunta found it
easier than before to keep his head load balanced, and he felt
a new spurt of strength with each of the drum talk messages
that now filled the air with word of the arrival of griots, jalibas,
senior elders, and other important people in the town ahead,
each representing such distant home villages as Karantaba,
Kootacunda, Pisania, and Jonkakonda, most of which Kunta
had never heard of. A griot from the Kingdom of Wooli was
there, said the drums, and even a prince sent by his father, the
King of Barra. As Kunta’s cracked feet padded quickly along
the hot, dusty trail, he was amazed at how famous and popular
his uncles were. Soon he was all but running, not only to keep
close behind the ever more rapidly striding Omoro, but also
because these past few hours seemed to be taking forever.
Finally, just as the sun began to turn crimson on the western
horizon, Kunta spotted smoke rising from a village not far
ahead. The wide, circular pattern of the smoke told Kunta that
dried baobab hulls were being burned to drive away
mosquitoes. That meant the village was entertaining important
visitors. He felt like cheering. They had arrived! Soon he
began to hear the thunder of a big ceremonial tobalo drum–
being pounded, he guessed, as each new personage entered
between the village gates. Intermingling was the throb of
smaller tan-tang drums and the shriekings of dancers. Then
the trail made a turn, and there under the rising smoke was
the village. And alongside a bushy growth they saw a man who
caught sight of them at the same instant and began to point
and wave as if he had been posted there to await an
oncoming man with a boy. Omoro waved back at the man,
who immediately squatted over his drum and announced on it:
“Omoro Kinte and first son”–Kunta’s-feet scarcely felt the
ground. The travelers’ tree, soon in sight, was festooned with
cloth strips, and the original single-file trail had already been
widened by many feet–evidence of an already popular and
busy village. The pounding of the tan-tangs grew louder and
louder, and suddenly the dancers appeared, grunting and
shouting in their leaf-and-bark costumes, leaping and whirling
and stamping out through the village gate ahead of everyone
else, all of them rushing to meet the distinguished visitors. The
village’s deep-voiced tobalo began to boom as two figures
came running through the crowd. Ahead of Kunta, Omoro’s
head bundle dropped suddenly to the ground, and Omoro was
running toward them. Before he knew it, Kunta’s own head
bundle had dropped and he was running too. The two men
and his father were hugging and pounding each other. “And
this is our nephew?” Both men yanked Kunta off his feet and
embraced him amid exclamations of joy. Sweeping them on
to the village, the huge welcoming party cried out their
greetings all around them, but Kunta saw and beard no one
but his uncles. They certainly resembled Omoro, but he
noticed that they were both somewhat shorter, stockier, and
more muscular than his father. The older uncle Janneh’s eyes
had a squinting way of seeming to look a long distance, and
both men moved with an almost animal quickness. They also
talked much more rapidly than his father as they plied him with
questions about Juffure and about Binta. Finally, Saloum
thumped his fist on Kunta’s head. “Not since he got his name
have we been together. And now look at him! How many rains
have you, Kunta?” “Eight, sir,” he answered politely. “Nearly
ready for manhood training!” exclaimed his uncle. All around
the village’s tall bamboo fence, dry thorn- bushes were piled
up, and concealed among them were sharp-pointed stakes to
cripple any marauding animal or human. But Kunta wasn’t
noticing such things, and the few others of around his age who
were there he saw only out of the corners of his eyes. He
scarcely heard the racket of the parrots and monkeys above
their heads, or the barking of the wuolo dogs underfoot, as the
uncles took them on a tour of their beautiful new village. Every
hut had its own private yard, said Saloum, and every woman’s
dry- foods storehouse was mounted directly over her cooking
fire, so the smoke would keep her rice, couscous, and millet
free of bugs. Kunta almost got dizzy jerking his head toward
this or that exciting sight, smell, or sound. It was both
fascinating and confusing to overhear people speaking in
Mandinka dialects that he couldn’t understand beyond an
occasional word. Like the rest of the Mandinkas–except for
those as learned as the arafang–Kunta knew next to nothing
of the languages of other tribes, even of those who lived
nearby. But he had spent enough time around the travelers’
tree to know which tribes were which. The Fulas had oval
faces, longer hair, thinner lips, and sharper features, and
vertical scars on their temples. The Wolof were extremely
black and very reserved, the Serahuli lighter-skinned and
small in stature. And the Jolas–there was no mistaking them–
scarred their entire bodies, and their faces always seemed to
wear a ferocious expression. Kunta recognized people from
all of these tribes here in the new village, but there were even
more he didn’t recognize. Some were haggling loudly with
traders as they hawked their wares. Older women clamored
over tanned hides, and younger women bargained for
hairpieces made from sisal and baobab. The cry “Kola! Fine
purple kola!” drew a cluster of those whose few remaining
teeth were already orange-stained from chewing the nuts.
Amid friendly elbowing and pushing, Omoro was introduced to
an endless stream of villagers and important persons from
exciting places. Kunta marveled at his uncles’ fluent talking in
the strange tongues they spoke. Letting himself drift into the
shifting throng, knowing that he could find his father and uncles
whenever he wanted to, Kunta soon found himself among the
musicians who were playing for all who felt like dancing. Next
he sampled the roast antelope and beef and the groundnut
stew that the village women kept bountifully supplied on tables
in the baobabs’ shade for anyone who wanted it. It was all
right as food went, Kunta thought, but not as tasty as the
succulent harvest-festival dishes prepared by the mothers of
Juffure. Seeing some women over by the well talking excitedly
about something, Kunta sidled over, his ears as wide as his
eyes, and heard that a very great mar about was reported to
be only about halfa day’s travel away on the trail, journeying
with his party to honor the new village, since it had been
founded by sons of the late holy man Kairaba Kunta Kinte.
Kunta was thrilled anew to hear his own grandfather spoken of
so reverently. Unrecognized by any of the women, he heard
them chatter next about his uncles. It was time they traveled
less and settled down to have wives and sons, one woman
said. “The only trouble they will have,” said another, “is so
many maidens eager to be their wives.” It was almost dark
when Kunta, feeling very awkward, finally approached some
boys of around his own age. But they didn’t seem to mind that
he had hung around the grownups until now. Mostly, they
seemed anxious to tell Kunta how their new village had come
to be. “All of our families became your uncles’ friends
somewhere during their travels,”said one boy. All of them had
been dissatisfied with their lives where they were, for one
reason or another. “My grandfather didn’t have enough space
for all his family and his children’s families to be close to him,”
a boy said. “Our belong wouldn’t grow good rice,” said
another. His uncles, Kunta heard, began telling friends they
knew an ideal place where they were thinking of building a
village. And the families of Janneh and Saloum’s friends were
soon on the trail with their goats, chickens, pets, prayer rugs,
and other possessions. Soon it was dark and Kunta watched
as the fires of the new village were lit with the sticks and
branches that his new friends had collected earlier in the day.
Because it was a time of celebration, they told him, all the
villagers and visitors would sit together around several fires,
instead of the usual custom, which dictated that the men and
the women and children would sit at separate fires. The
alimamo would bless the gathering, they said, and then
Janneh and Saloum would walk inside the circle to tell stories
about their travels and adventures. In the circle with them
would be the oldest visitor to the village, a senior elder from
the distant upper-river of Fulladu. It was whispered that he had
over a hundred rains, and would share his wisdom with all who
had ears to hear. Kunta ran to join his father at the fireside just
in time to hear the alimamo’s prayer. After it, no one said
anything for a few minutes. Crickets rasped loudly, and the
smoky fires cast dancing shadows upon the wide circle of
faces. Finally, the leathery old elder spoke: “Hundreds of rains
before even my earliest memories, talk reached across the
big waters of an African mountain of gold. This is what first
brought toubob to Africa!” There was no gold mountain, he
said, but gold beyond description had been found in streams
and mined from deep shafts first in northern Guinea, then later
in the forests of Ghana. “Toubob was never told where gold
came from,” said the old man, “for what one toubob knows,
soon they all know.” Then Janneh spoke. Nearly as precious
as gold in many places, he said, was salt. He and Saloum had
personally seen salt and gold exchanged in equal weights.
Salt was found in thick slabs under certain distant sands, and
certain waters elsewhere would dry into a salty mush, which
was shaped into blocks after sitting in the sun. “There was
once a city of salt,” said the old man. “The city of Taghaza,
whose people built their houses and mosques of blocks of
salt.” “Tell of the strange humpbacked animals you have
spoken of before now,” demanded an ancient-looking old
woman, daring to interrupt. She reminded Kunta of
Grandmother Nyo Boto. A hyena howled somewhere in the
night as people leaned forward in the flickering light. It was
Saloum’s turn to speak. “Those animals that are called
camels live in a place of endless sand. They find their way
across it from the sun, the stars, and the wind. Janneh and I
have ridden these animals for as long as three moons with
few stops for water.” “But many stops to fight off the bandits!”
said Janneh. “Once we were part of a caravan of twelve
thousand camels,” Saloum continued. “Actually, it was many
smaller caravans traveling together to protect ourselves
against bandits.” Kunta saw that as Saloum spoke, Janneh
was unrolling a large piece of tanned hide. The elder made an
impatient gesture to two young men who sprang to throw onto
the fire some dry branches. In the flaring light, Kunta and the
others could follow Janneh’s finger as it moved across a
strange-looking drawing. “This is Africa,” he said. The finger
traced what he told them was “the big water” to the west, and
then “the great sand desert,” a place larger by many times
than all of The Gambia–which he pointed out in the lower left
of the drawing. “To the north coast of Africa, the toubob ships
bring porcelain, spices, cloth, horses, and countless things
made by men,” said Saloum. “Then, camels and donkeys
bear these goods inland to places like Sijilmasa, Ghadames,
and Manrakech.” The moving finger of Janneh showed where
those cities were. “And as we sit here tonight,” said Saloum,
“there are many men with heavy head loads crossing deep
forests taking our own African goods–ivory, skins, olives,
dates, kola nuts, cotton, copper, precious stones–back to the
toubob’s ships.” Kunta’s mind reeled at what he heard, and he
vowed silently that someday he too would venture to such
exciting places. “The mar about From far out on the trail, the
lookout drummer beat out the news. Quickly a formal greeting
party was lined up–Janneh and Saloum as the village’s
founders; then the Council of Elders, the alimamo, the
arafang; then the honored representatives of other villages,
including Omoro; and Kunta was placed with those of his
height among the village’s young ones. Musicians led them all
out toward the travelers’ tree, timing their approach to meet
the holy man as he arrived. Kunta stared hard at the whitebearded,
very black old man at the head of his long and tired
party. Men, women, and children were heavily loaded with
large head bundles except for a few men herding cattle and,
Kunta judged, more than a hundred goats. With quick
gestures, the holy man blessed the welcoming party and bade
them rise from their knees. Then Janneh and Saloum were
specially blessed, and Omoro was introduced by Janneh, and
Saloum beckoned to Kunta, who went dashing up alongside
them. “This is my first son,” said Omoro, “who bears his holy
grandfather’s name.” Kunta heard the mar about speak words
in Arabic over him–which he couldn’t understand, except for
his grandfather’s name–and he felt the holy man’s fingers
touching his head as lightly as a butterfly’s wing, and then he
went dashing back among those of his own age as the mar
about went to meet the others in the welcoming party,
conversing with them as if he were an ordinary man. The
young ones in Kunta’s group began to trail away and stare at
the long line of wives, children, students, and slaves who
brought up the rear of the procession. The mar about wives
and children quickly retired into guest huts. The students,
taking seats on the ground and opening their head bundles
withdrew books and manu- scripts–the property of their
teacher, the holy man–and began reading aloud to those who
gathered around each of them to listen. The slaves, Kunta
noticed, didn’t enter the village with the others. Remaining
outside the fence, the slaves squatted down near where they
had tethered the cattle and penned the goats. They were the
first slaves Kunta had ever seen who kept away from other
people. The holy man could scarcely move for all the people
on their knees around him. Villagers and distinguished visitors
alike pressed their foreheads to the dirt and wailed for him to
hear their plaints, some of the nearest presuming to touch his
garment. Some begged him to visit their villages and conduct
long-neglected religious services. Some asked for legal
decisions, since law and religion were companions under
Islam. Fathers asked to be given meaningful names for new
babies. People from villages without an arafang asked if their
children might be taught by one of the holy man’s students.
These students were now busily selling small squares of cured
goat hide which many hands then thrust toward the holy man
for him to make his mark on. A holy-marked piece of goatskin,
sewn into a treasured sap hie charm such as Kunta wore
around his upper arm, would insure the wearer’s constant
nearness to Allah. For the two cowrie shells he had brought
with him from Juffure, Kunta purchased a square of goat hide
and joined the jostling crowd that pressed in upon the mar
about It ran through Kunta’s mind that his grandfather must
have been like this holy man, who had the power, through
Allah, to bring the rain to save a starving village, as Kairaba
Kunta Kinte had once saved Juffure. So his beloved
grandmas Yaisa and Nyo Boto had told him since he was old
enough to understand. But only now, for the first time, did he
truly understand the greatness of his grandfather–and of
Islam. Only one person, thought Kunta, was going to be told
why he had decided to spend his precious two cowries and
now stood holding his own small square of cured goatskin
waiting his turn for a holy mark. He was going to take the
blessed goatskin back home and turn it over to Nyo Boto, and
ask her to keep it for him until the time came to sew it into a
precious sap hie charm for the arm of his own first son.
CHAPTER 21
Kunta’s kafo, galled with envy of his trip, and expecting that he
would return to Juffure all puffed up with himself, had decided–
without any of them actually saying so–to show no interest
whatever in him or his travels when he returned. And so they
did, thinking nothing of how heartsick it made Kunta feel to
arrive home and find his lifelong mates not only acting as if he
hadn’t been away, but actually ending conversations if he
came near, his dearest friend Sitafa acting even colder than
the others. Kunta was so upset that he hardly even thought
about his new infant brother, Suwadu, who had been born
while he was away With Omoro. One noon, as the goats
grazed, Kunta finally decided to overlook his mates’
unkindness and try to patch things up. Walking over to the
other boys, who were sitting apart from him eating their
lunches, he sat down among them and simply began talking. “I
wish you could have been with me,” he said quietly, and
without waiting for their reaction, began to tell them about the
trip. He told how hard the days of walking had been, how his
muscles had ached, about his fright in passing the lions. And
he described the different villages he had passed through and
the people who lived there. While he spoke, one of the boys
jumped up to regroup his goats, and when he returned–
without seeming to notice–sat down closer to Kunta. Soon
Kunta’s words were being accompanied by grunts and
exclamations from the others, and before they knew it, just at
that point in his story when he reached his uncles’ new village,
the time had come to drive the goats homeward. The next
morning in the schoolyard, all of the boys had to strain not to
let the arafang suspect their impatience to leave. Finally out
again with their goats, they huddled around Kunta, and he
began to tell them about the different tribes and languages all
intermingled in his uncles’ village. He was in the middle of one
of the tales of faraway places that Janneh and Saloum had
told around the camp- fire–the boys hanging raptly on every
word–when the stillness of the fields was broken by the
ferocious barking of a wuolo dog and the shrill, terrified
bleating of a goat. Springing upright, they saw over the edge
of the tall grass a great, tawny panther dropping a goat from
his jaws and lunging at two of their wuolo dogs. The boys were
still standing there, too shocked and scared to move, when
one of the dogs was flung aside by the panther’s sweeping
paw–as the other dog leaped wildly back and forth, the
panther crouched to spring, their horrible snarlings drowning
out the frantic barking of the other dogs and the cries of the
other goats, which were bounding off in all directions. Then the
boys fanned out, shouting and running, most trying to head off
the goats. But Kunta bolted blindly toward his father’s fallen
goat. “Stop, Kunta! No!” screamed Sitafa as he tried to stop
him from running between the dogs and the panther. He
couldn’t catch him; but when the panther saw the two yelling
boys rushing at him, he backed off a few feet, then turned and
raced back toward the forest with the enraged dogs at his
heels. The panther stink and the mangled nanny goat made
Kunta sick–blood was running darkly down her twisted neck;
her tongue lolled out; her eyes were rolled back up in her head
and–most horribly–her belly was ripped wide open and Kunta
could see her unborn kid inside, still slowly pulsing. Nearby
was the first wuolo dog, whining in pain from its gashed side
and trying to crawl toward Kunta. Vomiting where he stood,
Kunta turned, ashen, and looked at Sitafa’s anguished face.
Dimly, through his tears, Kunta sensed some of the other boys
around him, staring at the hurt dog and the dead goat. Then
slowly they all drew back–all but Sitafa, who put his arms
around Kunta. None of them spoke, but the question hung in
the air: How is he going to tell his father? Somehow Kunta
found his voice. “Can you care for my goats?” he asked
Sitafa. “I must take this hide to my father.” Sitafa went over
and talked with the other boys, and two of them quickly picked
up and carried off the whimpering dog. Kunta then motioned
Sitafa to go away with the others. Kneeling by the dead nanny
goat with his knife, Kunta cut and pulled, and cut again, as he
had seen his father do it, until finally he rose with the wet hide
in his hands. Pulling weeds, he covered over the nanny’s
carcass and the unborn kid, and started back toward the
village. Once before he had forgotten his goats while herding,
and he had vowed never to let it happen again. But it had
happened again, and this time a nanny goat had been killed.
Desperately, he hoped it was a nightmare and that he’d
awaken now, but the wet hide was in his hands. He wished
death upon himself, but he knew his disgrace would be taken
among the ancestors. Allah must be punishing him for
boasting, Kunta thought with shame. He stopped to kneel
toward the way the sun rose and prayed for forgiveness.
Rising, he saw that his kafo had all the goats herded back
together and were getting ready to leave the grazing area,
lifting their head loads of firewood. One boy was carrying the
injured dog, and two of the other dogs were limping badly.
Sitafa, seeing Kunta looking toward them, put his head load
down and started toward Kunta, but quickly Kunta waved him
away again to go on with the rest. Each footstep along the
worn goat trail seemed to take Kunta closer to the end–the
end of everything. Guilt and terror and numbness washed over
him in waves. He would be sent away. He would miss Binta,
Lamin, and old Nyo Boto. He would even miss the arafang’s
class. He thought of his late Grandma Yaisa, of his holy man
grandfather whose name he bore, now disgraced; of his
famous traveling uncles, who had built a village. He
remembered that he had no head load of firewood. He
thought of the nanny goat, whom he remembered well, always
skittish and given to trotting off from the rest. And he thought of
the kid not yet born. And while he thought of all these things,
he could think of nothing but what he most feared to think of:
his father. His mind lurched, and he stopped, rooted, not
breathing, staring ahead of him down the path. It was Omoro,
running toward him. No boy would have dared tell him; how
had he known? “Are you all right?” his father asked. Kunta’s
tongue seemed cleaved to the roof of his mouth. “Yes, Pa,” he
said finally. But by then Omoro’s hand was exploring Kunta’s
belly, discovering that the blood soaking his dundiko wasn’t
Kunta’s. Straightening, Omoro took the hide and laid it on the
grass. “Sit down!” he ordered, and Kunta did, trembling as
Omoro sat across from him. “There is something you need to
know,” said Omoro. “All men make mistakes. I lost a goat to a
lion when I was of your rains.” Pulling at his tunic, Omoro
bared his left hip. The pale, deeply scarred place there
shocked Kunta. “I learned, and you must learn. Never run
toward any dangerous animal! ” His eyes searched Kunta’s
face. “Do you hear me?” “Yes, Fa.” Omoro got up, took the
goafs hide, and flung it far off into the brush. “Then that is all
that needs to be said.” Kunta’s head reeled as he walked
back to the village behind Omoro. Greater even than his guilt,
and his relief, was the love he felt for his father at this moment
CHAPTER 22 Kunta had reached his tenth rain, and the
second-kafo boys his age were about to complete the
schooling they had received twice daily since they were five
rains old. When the day of graduation came, the parents of
Kunta and his mates seated themselves in the arafang’s
schoolyard beaming with pride in the very front rows, even
ahead of the village elders. While Kunta and the others
squatted before the ara- fang, the village alimamo prayed.
Then the arafang stood and began looking around at his
pupils as they waved their hands to be asked a question.
Kunta was the first boy he chose. “What was the profession of
your forefathers, Kunta Kinte?” he asked. “Hundreds of rains
ago in the land of Man,” Kunta confidently replied, “the Kinte
men were blacksmiths, and their women were makers of pots
and weavers of cloth.” With each pupil’s correct answer, all
those assembled made loud sounds of pleasure. Then the
arafang asked a mathematical question: “If a baboon has
seven wives, each wife has seven children, and each child
eats seven ground nuts for seven days, how many nuts did the
baboon steal from some man’s farm?” After much frantic
figuring with grass-quill pens on their cottonwood slates, the
first to yelp out the right answer was Sitafa Silla, and the
crowd’s shouting of praise drowned out the groans of the
other boys. Next the boys wrote their names in Arabic, as they
had been taught. And one by one, the arafang held up the
slates for all the parents and other spectators to see for
themselves what education had achieved. Like the other boys,
Kunta had found the marks that talk even harder to read than
they were to write. Many mornings and evenings, with the
arafang rapping their knuckles, they had all wished that writing
was as easy to understand as the talking drum, which even
those of Lamin’s age could read as if someone standing
beyond sight were calling out the words. One by one now, the
arafang asked each graduate to stand. Finally came Kunta’s
turn. “Kunta Kintel” With all eyes upon him, Kunta felt the great
pride of his family in the front row, even of his ancestors in the
burying ground beyond the village–most especially of his
beloved Grandma Yaisa. Standing up, he read aloud a verse
from the Koran’s last page; finishing, he pressed it to his
forehead and said, “Amen!” When the readings were done,
the teacher shook each boy’s hand and announced loudly that
as their education was complete, these boys were now of the
third kafo, and everyone broke out into a loud cheering. Binta
and the other mothers quickly removed the covers from the
bowls and calabashes they had brought, heaped with
delicious foods, and the graduation ceremony ended in a
feast that soon emptied both. Omoro was waiting the next
morning when Kunta came to take the family’s goats out for
the day’s grazing. Pointing to a fine young male and female,
Omoro said, “These two are your school-finishing present.”
Almost before Kunta could stammer out his thanks, Omoro
walked away without another word–as if he gave away a pair
of goats every day–and Kunta tried very hard not to seem
excited. But the moment his father was out of sight, Kunta
whooped so loud that his new charges jumped and started
running–with all the others in hot pursuit. By the time he caught
up with them and herded them out to the fields, the rest of his
mates were already there–showing off their own new goats.
Treating them like sacred animals, the boys steered their
charges to only the most tender grasses, already picturing the
strong young kids they would soon produce, and the kids
would have soon after, until each boy had a herd as large and
valuable as his father’s. Before the next new moon appeared,
Omoro and Binta were among the parents who gave away a
third goat–this one to the arafang as an expression of
gratitude for their son’s education. If they had been more
prosperous, they would have been glad to give even a cow,
but they knew he understood that this was beyond their
means, as it was beyond the means of everyone in Juffure,
which was a humble village. Indeed, some parents–new
slaves with nothing saved–had little to offer but their own
backs, and their grateful gift of a moon’s farm work for the
arafang was graciously accepted. The passing moons soon
flowed into seasons until yet another rain had passed and
Kunta’s kafo had taught Lamin’s kafo how to be goatherds. A
time long awaited now drew steadily nearer. Not a day
passed that Kunta and his mates didn’t feel both anxiety and
joy at the approach of the next harvest festival, which would
end with the taking away of the third kafo–those boys between
ten and fifteen rains in age–to a place far away from Juffure,
to which they would return, after four moons, as men. Kunta
and the others tried to act as if none of them were really giving
the matter any particular thought or concern. But they thought
of little else, and they watched and listened for the slightest
sign or word from a grownup that had anything at all to do with
manhood training. And early in the dry season, after several of
their fathers quietly left Juffure for two or three days and just as
quietly returned, the boys whispered tensely among
themselves, especially after Kalilu Conteh overheard his uncle
say that much-needed repairs had been made on the jujuo,
the manhood-training village that had gone unused and
exposed to weather and animals for almost five rains since
the last training had been completed there. Even more excited
whispering followed talk among their fathers about which elder
might be selected by the Council of Elders to be the kin tango
the man in charge of manhood training. Kunta and all of his
mates had many times heard their fathers, uncles, and older
brothers speaking reverently of the kin- tangos who had
supervised their own manhood training many rains before. It
was just before the harvest season when all of the third-kafo
boys reported to one another in a fever of excitement how
their mothers had silently measured each of them with a
sewing tape around his head and down to his shoulders.
Kunta did his best to hide the vivid memory of that morning
five rains before when, as brand-new little goatherds, he and
his mates had been scared nearly out of their wits as they
watched screaming boys under white hoods being kicked and
jeered from the village by a band of temfyingly masked,
shrieking, spear-carrying kanku- rang dancers. The tobalo
soon boomed out the beginning of the new harvest, and Kunta
joined the rest of the villagers in the fields. He welcomed the
long days of hard work, for they kept him too busy and too
tired to give much thought to what lay ahead. But when the
harvesting was done and the festival began, he found himself
unable to enjoy the music and the dancing and the feasting as
the others did–as he himself had done for as long as he could
remember. The louder the merriment, in fact, the unhappier he
became until finally he spent most of the last two days of the
festival sitting by himself on the banks of the belong skipping
stones across the water. On the night before the last day of the
festival, Kunta was in Binta’s hut silently finishing his evening
meal of groundnut stew with rice when Omoro walked in
behind him. From the corner of his eye, Kunta glimpsed his
father raising something white, and before he had a chance to
turn around, Omoro had pulled a long hood down firmly over
his head. The terror that shot through Kunta all but numbed
him. He-felt his father’s hand gripping his upper arm and
urging him to stand up, then to move backward until he was
pushed down onto a low stool. Kunta was grateful to sit, for his
legs felt like water and his head felt light. He listened to
himself breathing in short gasps, knowing that if he tried to
move, he would fall off the stool. So he sat very still, trying to
accustom himself to the darkness. Terrified as he was, it
seemed almost a double darkness. As his upper lip felt the
moist warmth of his breath inside the hood, it flashed through
Kunta’s mind that surely once such a hood had been thrust in
the same way over his father’s head. Could Omoro have been
so frightened? Kunta couldn’t even imagine that, and he felt
ashamed to be such a disgrace to the Kinte clan. It was very
quiet in the hut. Wrestling the fear that knotted the pit of his
stomach, Kunta closed his eyes and focused his very pores
on trying to hear something, anything at all. He thought he
heard Binta moving about, but he couldn’t be sure. He
wondered where Lamin was, and Suwadu, who surely would
be making noise. He knew only one thing for sure: Neither
Binta nor anyone else was going to speak to him, let alone lift
that hood off his head. And then Kunta thought how awful it
would be if his hood did get lifted, for everyone would see how
scared he really was, and perhaps therefore a boy unworthy of
joining his kafo mates in manhood training. Even boys the
size of Lamin knew–since Kunta had told him–what would
happen to anyone who showed himself too weak or cowardly
to endure the training that turned boys into hunters, into
warriors, into men–all within a period of twelve moons.
Suppose he should fail? He began gulping down his fear,
remembering how he had been told that any boy who failed
the manhood training would be treated as a child for the rest
of his life, even though he might look like a grown man. He
would be avoided, and his village would never permit him to
marry, lest he father others like himself. These sad cases,
Kunta had heard, usually slipped away from their villages
sooner or later, never to return, and even their own fathers,
mothers, brothers, and sisters would never mention them
again. Kunta saw himself slinking away from Juffure like some
mangy hyena, scorned by everyone; it was too horrible to think
of. After a time, Kunta realized that he was faintly hearing the
drumbeats and the shouting of dancers in the distance. More
time passed. What hour was it, he wondered. He guessed it
must be near the sutoba hour, halfway between dusk and
dawn, but after a few moments he heard the alimamo’s highpitched
wailing for the village’s safo prayer, two hours before
midnight. The music ceased and Kunta knew that the villagers
had stopped their celebrating and the men were hastening to
the mosque. Kunta sat until he knew the prayers must have
been over, but the music didn’t resume. He listened hard, but
could hear only silence. Finally he nodded off, awakening with
a start only a few moments later. It was still quiet–and darker
under the hood than a moonless night. Finally, faintly, he was
certain that he could hear the early yippings of hyenas. He
knew that hyenas always yipped for a while before settling
down to steady howling, which they would continue until early
daybreak, sounding eerily far away. During the harvest festival
week, at the first streaks of daybreak, Kunta knew the tobalo
would boom. He sat waiting for that to happen–for anything to
happen. He felt his anger building, expecting the tobalo to
sound at any moment–but nothing happened. He grated his
teeth and waited some, more. And then, at last, after jerking
awake a few times, he dozed off into a fitful sleep. He all but
leaped from his skin when the tobalo finally did boom. Under
the hood, his cheeks were hot with embarrassment that he
had fallen asleep. Having become accustomed to the hood’s
darkness, Kunta could all but see the morning’s activities from
the sounds his ears picked up–the crowing of the cocks, the
barking of the wuolo dogs, the wailing of the alimamo, the
bumping of the women’s pestles as they beat the breakfast
couscous. This morning’s prayer to Allah, he knew, would be
for the success of the manhood training that was about to
begin. He heard movement in the hut, and he sensed that it
was Binta. It was strange how he couldn’t see her, but he knew
it was his mother. Kunta wondered about Sitafa and his other
mates. It surprised him to realize that throughout the night, he
hadn’t once thought about them until now. He told himself that
they must surely have had as long a night as he had. When the
music of koras and balafons began playing outside the hut,
Kunta heard the sound of people walking and talking, louder
and louder. Then drums joined the din, their rhythm sharp and
cutting. A moment later, his heart seemed to stop as he
sensed the sudden movement of someone rushing into the
hut. Before he could even brace himself, his wrists were
grabbed, and roughly he was snatched up from the stool and
jerked out through the hut door into the all but deafening noise
of staccato drums and screeching people. Hands knocked
him and feet kicked him. Kunta thought desperately of bolting
away somehow, but just as he was about to try, a firm yet
gentle hand grasped one of his. Breathing hoarsely under his
hood, Kunta realized that he was no longer being hit and
kicked and that the screaming of the crowd was suddenly no
longer nearby. The people, he guessed, had moved along to
some other boy’s hut, and the guiding hand that held his must
belong to the slave Omoro would have hired, as every father
did, to lead his hooded son to the jujuo. The crowd’s shouting
rose to a frenzied pitch every time another boy was dragged
from a hut, and Kunta was glad he couldn’t see the kankurang
dancers, who were making bloodcurdling whoops as they
sprang high into the air brandishing their spears. Big drums
and small drums–every drum in the village, it seemed–were
pounding as the slave guided Kunta faster and faster between
rows of people shouting on either side of him, crying out
things like “Four moons!” and “They will become meni” Kunta
wanted to burst into tears. He wished wildly that he could
reach out and touch Omoro, Binta, Lamin–even the sniveling
Suwadu–for it felt too much to bear that four long moons were
going to pass before he would see again those he loved even
more than he had ever realized until now. Kunta’s ears told
him that he and his guide had joined a moving line of
marchers, all stepping to the swift rhythm of the drums. As they
passed through the village gates–he could tell because the
noise of the crowd began to fade–he felt hot tears well up and
run down his cheeks. He closed his eyes tight, as if to hide the
tears even from himself. As he had felt Binta’s presence in the
hut, now he felt, almost as if it were a smell, the fear of his kafo
mates ahead and behind him in the line, and he knew that
theirs was as great as his. Somehow that made him feel less
ashamed. As he trudged on in the white blindness of his hood,
he knew that he was leaving behind more than his father and
his mother and his brothers and the village of his birth, and
this filled him with sadness as much as terror. But he knew it
must be done, as it had been done by his father before him
and would some day be done by his son. He would return, but
only as a man.
CHAPTER 23
They must be approaching–within a stone’s throw, Kunta
sensed–a recently cut bamboo grove. Through his hood, he
could smell the rich fragrance of bamboo freshly chopped.
They marched closer; the smell became stronger and
stronger; they were at the barrier, then through it; but they were
still outdoors. Of course–it was a bamboo fence. Suddenly the
drums stopped and the marchers halted. For several minutes,
Kunta and the others stood still and silent. He listened for the
slightest sound that might tell him when they had stopped or
where they were, but all he could hear was the screeching of
parrots and the scolding of monkeys overhead. Then,
suddenly, Kunta’s hood was lifted. He stood blinking in the
bright sun of midafternoon, trying to adjust his eyes to the light.
He was afraid even to turn his head enough to see his kafo
mates, for directly before them stood stem, wrinkled senior
elder Silla Ba Dibba. Like all the other boys, Kunta knew him
and his family well. But Silla Ba Dibba acted as if he had
never seen any of them before–indeed, as if he would rather
not see them now; his eyes scanned their faces as he would
have looked at crawling maggots. Kunta knew that this surely
was their kin- tango. Standing on either side of him were two
younger men, All Sise and Soru Tura, whom Kunta also knew
well; Soru was a special friend of Omoro’s. Kunta was grateful
that neither of them wiw Omoro, to see his son so scared. As
they had been taught, the entire kafo–all twenty- three boys–
crossed their palms over their hearts and greeted their elders
in the traditional way: “Peace!” “Peace only!” replied the old
kin tango and his assistants. Widening his gaze for a
moment–careful not to move his head–Kunta saw that they
stood in a compound dotted with several small, mud-walled,
thatch-roofed huts and surrounded by the tall new bamboo
fence. He could see where the huts had been patched,
undoubtedly by the fathers who had disappeared from Juffure
for a few days. All this he saw without moving a muscle. But
the next moment he nearly jumped out of his skin. “Children
left Juffure village,” said the kin tango suddenly in a loud voice.
“If men are to return, your fears must be erased, for a fearful
person is a weak person, and a weak person is a danger to
his family, to his village, and to his tribe.” He glared at them as
if he had never seen such a sorry lot, and then turned away. As
he did so, his two assistants sprang forward and began to lay
about among the boys with limber sticks, pummeling their
shoulders and backsides smartly as they herded them like so
many goats, a few boys apiece, into the small mud huts.
Huddled in their bare hut, Kunta and his four mates were too
terrified to feel the lingering sting of the blows they had
received, and too ashamed to raise their heads even enough
to Jook at one another. After a few minutes, when it seemed
that they would be spared from further abuse for a little while,
Kunta began to sneak looks at his companions. He wished
that he and Sitafa were in the same hut. He knew these
others, of course, but none as well as his yayo brother, and his
heart sank. But perhaps that’s no accident, he reasoned. They
probably don’t want us to have even that small comfort. Maybe
they’re not even going to feed us, he began to think, when his
stomach started to growl with hunger. Just after sunset, the kin
tango assistants burst into the hut. “Move!” A stick caught him
sharply across the shoulders, and the scrambling boys were
hissed at as they rushed outside into the dusk, bumping into
boys from other huts, and under the flying sticks were herded
with gruff orders into a ragged line, each boy grasping the
hand of the boy ahead. When they were all in place, the kin
tango fixed them with a dark scowl and announced that they
were about to undertake a night journey deep into the
surrounding forest. At the order to march, the long line of boys
set out along the path in clumsy disarray, and the sticks fell
steadily among them. “You walk like buffalo!” Kunta heard
close to his ear. A boy cried out as he was hit, and both
assistants shouted loudly in the darkness, “Who was that?,”
and their sticks rained down even harder. After that no boy
uttered a sound. Kunta’s legs soon began to hurt–but not as
soon or as badly as they would have done if he hadn’t learned
the manner of loose striding taught him by his father on their
trip to the village of Janneh and Saloum. It pleased him to
think that the other boys’ legs were surely hurting worse than
his, for they wouldn’t yet know how to walk. But nothing he had
learned did anything to help Kunta’s hunger and thirst. His
stomach felt tied in knots, and he was starting to feel lightheaded
when at last a stop was called near a small stream.
The reflection of the bright moon in its surface was soon set to
rippling as the boys fell to their knees and began to scoop up
and gulp down handfuls of water. A moment later the kin tango
assistants commanded them away from the stream with
orders not to drink too much at once, then opened their head
packs and passed out some chunks of dried meat. The boys
tore away at the morsels like hyenas; Kunta chewed and
swallowed so fast that he barely tasted the four bites he
managed to wrest away for himself. Every boy’s feet had big,
raw blisters on them, Kunta’s as bad as any of the rest; but it
felt so good to have food and water in his stomach that he
hardly noticed. As they sat by the stream, he and his kafo
mates began to look around in the moonlight at one another,
this time too tired rather than too afraid to speak. Kunta and
Sitafa exchanged long glances, but neither could tell in the
dim light if his friend looked as miserable as he felt himself.
Kunta hardly had a chance to cool his burning feet in the
stream before the kin tango assistants ordered them back
into formation for the long walk back to the jujuo. His legs and
head were numb when they finally came within sight of the
bamboo gates shortly before dawn. Feeling ready to die, he
trudged to his hut, bumped into another boy already inside,
lost his footing, stumbled to the dirt floor–and fell deep asleep
right where he lay. On every night for the next six nights came
another march, each one longer than the last. The pain of his
blistered feet was terrible, but Kunta found by the fourth night
that he somehow didn’t mind the pain as much, and he began
to feel a welcome new emotion: pride. By the sixth march, he
and the other boys discovered that though the night was very
dark, they no longer needed to hold the next boy’s hand in
order to maintain a straight marching line. On the seventh
night came the kin tango first personal lesson for the boys:
showing them how men deep in the forest used the stars to
guide them, so that they would never be lost. Within the first
half moon, every boy of the kafo had- learned how to lead the
marching line by the stars, back toward the jujuo. One night
when Kunta was the leader, he almost stepped on a bush rat
before it noticed him and scurried for cover. Kunta was almost
as proud as he was startled, for this meant that the marchers
had been walking too silently to be heard even by an animal.
But animals, the kin tango told them, were the’ best teachers
of the art of hunting, which was one of the most important
things for any Mandinka to learn. When the kin tango was
satisfied that they had mastered the techniques of marching,
he took the kafo, for the next half moon, deep into the bush far
from the jujuo, where they built lean-to shelters to sleep in
between countless lessons in the secrets of becoming a
simbon. Kunta’s eyes never seemed to have been closed
before one of the kin tango assistants was shouting them
awake for some training session. The kin tango assistants
pointed out where lions had recently crouched in wait, then
sprung out to kill passing antelope; then where the lions had
gone after_ their meal and laid down to sleep for the rest of
the night. The tracks of the antelope herd were followed
backward until they almost painted a picture for the boys of
what those antelope had done through the day before they
met the lions. The kafo inspected the wide cracks in rocks
where wolves and hyenas hid. And they began to learn many
tricks of hunting that they had never dreamed about. They had
never realized, for example, that the first secret of the master
simbon was never moving abruptly. The old kin tango himself
told the boys a story about a foolish hunter who finally starved
to death in an area thick with game, because he was so
clumsy and made so much noise, darting here and there, that
all about him animals of every sort swiftly and silently slipped
away without his even realizing that any had been near. The
boys felt like that clumsy hunter during their lessons in
imitating the sounds of animals and birds. The air was rent
with their grunts and whistles, yet no birds or animals came
near. Then they would be told to lie very quietly in hiding
places while the kin tango and his assistants made what
seemed to them the same sounds, and soon animals and
birds would come into sight, cocking their heads and looking
for the others who had called to them. When the boys were
practicing bird calls one afternoon, suddenly a large-bodied,
heavy-beaked bird landed with a great squawking in a nearby
bush. “Look!” one boy shouted with a loud laugh–and every
other boy’s heart leaped into his throat, knowing that once
again that boy’s big mouth was going to get them all punished
together. No few times before had he shown his habit of
acting before thinking-but now the kin tango surprised them.
He walked over to the boy and said to him very sternly, “Bring
that bird to me–alive!” Kunta and his mates held their breaths
as, they watched the boy hunch down and creep toward the
bush where the heavy bird sat stupidly, turning its head this
way and that. But when the boy sprang, the bird managed to
escape his clutching hands, frantically beating its stubby
wings just enough to raise its big body over the brush tops–
and the boy went leaping after it in hot pursuit, soon
disappearing from sight. Kunta and the others were
thunderstruck. There was clearly no limit to what the kin tango
might order them to do. For the next three days and two
nights, as the boys went about their training sessions, they
cast long glances at each other and then the nearby bush, all
of them wondering and worrying about what had befallen their
missing mate. As much as he had annoyed them before by
getting them all beaten for things he’d done, he seemed never
more one of them now that he was gone. The boys were just
getting up on the morning of the fourth day when the jujuo
lookout’ signaled that someone was approaching the village.
A moment later came the drum message: It was he. They
rushed out to meet him, whooping as if their own brother had
returned from a trek to Marrakech. Thin and dirty and covered
with cuts and bruises, he swayed slightly as they ran up and
slapped him on the back. But he managed a weak smile–and
well he should: Under his arm, its wings and feet and beak
bound with a length of vine, he held the bird. It looked even
worse than he did, but it was still alive. The kin tango came
out, and though speaking to that boy, he made it clear that he
was really speaking to them all: “This taught you two important
things–to do as you are told, and to keep your mouth shut.
These are among the makings of men. ” Then Kunta and his
mates saw that boy receive the first clearly approving look
cast upon anyone by the old kin tango who had known that the
boy would sooner or later be able to catch a bird so heavy that
it could make only short, low hops through the bush. The big
bird was quickly roasted and eaten with great relish by
everyone except his captor, who was so tired that he couldn’t
stay awake long enough for it to cook. He was permitted to
sleep through the day and also through the night, which Kunta
and the others had to spend out in the bush on a hunting
lesson. The next day, during the first rest period, the boy told
his hushed mates what a torturous chase he had led, until
finally, after two days and a night, he had laid a trap that the
bird walked into. After trussing it up–including the snapping
beak–he had somehow kept himself awake for another day
and night, and by following the stars as they had been taught,
had found his way back to the jujuo. For a while after that, the
other boys had very little to say to him. Kunta told himself that
he wasn’t really jealous; it was just that the boy seemed to
think that his exploit–and the kin tango approval of it–had
made him more important than his kafo mates. And the very
next time the kin tango assistants ordered an afternoon of
wrestling practice, Kunta seized the chance to grab that boy
and throw him roughly to the ground. By the second moon of
manhood training, Kunta’s kafo had become almost as skilled
at survival in the forest as they would have been in their own
village. They could now both detect and follow the all but
invisible signs of animals, and now they were learning the
secret rituals and prayers of the forefathers that could make a
very great simbon himself invisible to animals. Every bite of
meat they ate now was either trapped by the boys or shot by
their slings and arrows. They could skin an animal twice as
fast as they could before, and cook the meat over the nearly
smokeless fires they had learned to build by striking flint close
to dry moss under light, dry sticks. Their meals of roasted
game–sometimes small bush rats–were usually topped off
with insects toasted crispy in the coals. Some of the most
valuable lessons they learned weren’t even planned. One day,
during a rest period, when a boy was testing his bow and one
careless arrow happened to strike a nest of kurburungo bees
high in a tree, a cloud of angry bees swarmed down–and
once again all the boys suffered for the mistake of one. Not
even the fastest runner among them escaped the painful
stings. “The simbon never shoots an arrow without knowing
what it will hit,” the kin tango told them later. Ordering the boys
to rub one another’s puffed and hurting places with shea tree
butter, he said, “Tonight, you will deal with those bees in the
proper manner.” By nightfall, the boys had piled dry moss
beneath the tree that held the nest. After one of the kin tango
assistants set it afire, the other one threw into the flames a
quantity of leaves from a certain bush. Thick, choking smoke
rose into the tree’s upper limbs, and soon dead bees were
dropping around the boys by the thousands, as harmlessly as
rain. In the morning, Kunta and his kafo were shown how to
melt down the honeycombs–skimming off the rest of the dead
bees–so that they could eat their fill of honey. Kunta could
almost feel himself tingle with that extra strength it was said
honey would give to great hunters when they were in need of
quick nourishment deep in the forest. But no matter what they
went through, no matter how much they added to their
knowledge and abilities, the old kin tango was never satisfied.
His demands and his discipline remained so strict that the
boys were torn between fear and anger most of the time–
when they weren’t too weary to feel either. Any command to
one boy that wasn’t instantly and perfectly performed still
brought a beating to the entire kafo. And when they weren’t
being beaten, it seemed to Kunta, they’ were being wakened
roughly in the middle of the night for a-long march–always as
a punishment for some boy’s wrongdoing. The only thing that
kept Kunta and the others from giving that boy a beating of
their own was the certain knowledge that they would be
beaten for fighting; among the first lessons they had learned in
life—long before coming to the jujuo–having been that
Mandinkas must never fight among themselves. Finally the
boys began to understand that the welfare of the group
depended on each of them–just as the welfare of their tribe
would depend on each of them one day. Violations of the rules
slowly dwindled to an occasional lapse, and with the decline in
heatings, the fear they felt for the kin tango was slowly
replaced by a respect they had felt before only for their
fathers. But still hardly a day would pass without something
new to make Kunta and his mates feel awkward and ignorant
all over again. It amazed them to learn, for example, that a rag
folded and hung in certain ways near a man’s hut would inform
other Mandinka men when he planned to return, or that
sandals crossed in certain ways outside a hut told many
things that only other men would understand. But the secret
Kunta found the most remarkable of all was sira kango, a kind
of men’s talk in which sounds of Mandinka words were
changed in such a way that no women or children or non-
Mandinkas were permitted to learn. Kunta remembered times
when he had heard his father say something very rapidly to
another man that Kunta had not understood nor dared to ask
explained. Now that he had learned it himself, he and his
mates soon spoke nearly everything they said in the secret
talk of men. In every hut as each moon went by, the boys
added a new rock to a bowl to mark how long they had been
gone from Juffure. Within days after the third rock was
dropped in the bowl, the boys were wrestling in the
compound-one afternoon when suddenly they looked toward
the gate of the jujuo, and there stood a group of twenty-five or
thirty men. A loud gasp rose from the boys as they recognized
their fathers, uncles, and older brothers. Kunta sprang up,
unable to believe his eyes, as a bolt of joy shot through him at
the first sight of Omoro for three moons. But it was as if some
unseen hand held him back and stifled a cry of gladness–
even before he saw in his father’s face no sign that he
recognized his son. Only one boy rushed forward, calling out
his father’s name, and without a word that father reached for
the stick of the nearest kin tango assistant and beat his son
with it, shouting at him harshly for betraying his emotions, for
showing that he was still a boy. He added, unnecessarily, as
he gave him the last licks, that his son should expect no favors
from his father. Then the kin tango himself barked a command
for the entire kafo to lie on their bellies in a row, and all of the
visiting men walked along the row and flailed the upturned
backsides with their walking sticks. Kunta’s emotions were in
a turmoil; the blows he didn’t mind at all, knowing them to be
merely another of the rigors of manhood training, but it pained
him not to be able to bug his father or even hear his voice, and
it shamed him to know that it wasn’t manly even to wish for
such indulgences. The beating over, the kin tango ordered the
boys to race, to jump, to dance, to wrestle, to pray as they had
been taught, and the fathers, uncles, and older brothers
watched it all silently, and then departed with warm
compliments to the kin tango and his assistants, but not so
much as a backward look at the boys, who stood with
downcast faces. Within the hour, they got another beating for
sulking about the preparation of their evening meal. It hurt all
the more because the kin tango and his assistants acted as if
the visitors had never even been there. But early that night,
while the boys were wrestling before bedtime–only
halfheartedly now–one of the kin tango assistants passed by
Kunta and said brusquely to him, under his breath, “You have
a new brother, and he is named Madi.” Four of us now,
thought Kunta, lying awake later that night. Four brothers–four
sons for his mother and father. He thought how that would
sound in the Kinte family history when it was told by griots for
hundreds of rains in the future. After Omoro, thought Kunta, he
would be the first man of the family when he returned to
Juffure. Not only was he learning to be a man, but he was also
learning many, many things he would be able to teach Lamin,
as already he had taught him so many of the things of
boyhood. At least he would teach him that which was
permissible for boys to know; and then Lamin would teach
Suwadu, and Suwadu would teach this new one whom Kunta
had not even seen, whose name was Madi. And some day,
Kunta thought as he drifted off to sleep, when he was as old
as Omoro, he would have sons of his own, and it would all
begin again.
CHAPTER 24
“You are ceasing to be children. You are experiencing rebirth
as men,” the kin tango said one morning to the assembled
kafo. This was the first time the kin tango had used the word
“men” except to tell them what they weren’t. After moons of
learning together, working together, being beaten together, he
told them, each of them was finally beginning to discover that
he had two selves–one within him, and the other, larger self in
all those whose blood and lives he shared. Not until they
learned that lesson could they undertake the next phase of
manhood training: how to be warriors. “You know already that
Mandinkas fight only if others are warlike,” said the kin tango
“But we are the finest warriors if driven to fight.” For the next
half moon, Kunta and his mates learned how to make war.
Famous Mandinka battle strategies were drawn in the dust by
the kin tango or his assistants, and then the boys were told to
re-enact the strategies in mock battles. “Never completely
encircle your enemy,” counseled the kin tango “Leave him
some escape, for he will fight even more desperately if
trapped.” The boys learned also that battles should start in
late afternoon, so that any enemy, seeing defeat, could save
face by retreating in the darkness. And they were taught that
during any wars, neither enemy should ever do harm to any
traveling mara bouts griots, or blacksmiths, for an angered
mar about could bring down the displeasure of Allah; an
angered griot could use his eloquent tongue to stir the enemy
army to greater savagery; and an angered blacksmith could
make or repair weapons for the enemy. Under the direction of
the kin tango assistants, Kunta and the others carved out
barbed spears and made barbed arrows of the kind used only
in battle, and practiced with them on smaller and smaller
targets. When a boy could hit a bamboo cane twenty-five
steps away, he was cheered and praised. Tramping into the
woods, the boys found some koona shrub, whose leaves they
picked to be boiled back at the jujuo. Into the resulting thick,
black juice they would dip a cotton thread, and they were
shown how that thread, wound around an arrow’s barbs, would
seep a deadly poison into whatever wound the arrow made.
At the end of the war-training period, the kin tango told them
more than they had ever known before–and told them more
excitingly than they had ever heard it–about that greatest of all
Mandinka wars and warriors–the time when the army of the
fabled ex-slave general Sundiata, son of Sogolon, the Buffalo
Woman, conquered the forces of the Boure country’s King
Soumaoro, a king so cruel that he wore human-skin robes and
adorned his palace walls with enemy’s bleached skulls. Kunta
and his mates held their breaths, hearing how both armies
suffered thousands of wounded or dead. But the archers of
the Mandinkas closed in on Soumaoro’s forces like a giant
trap, raining down arrows from both sides and moving in
steadily until Soumaoro’s terrified army finally fled in rout. For
days and nights, said the kin tango–and it was the first time
the boys ever had seen him smile–the talking drums of every
village followed the marching progress of the victorious
Mandinka forces, laden with enemy booty and driving
thousands of captives before them. In every village, happy
crowds jeered and kicked the prisoners, whose shaved heads
were bowed and whose hands were tied behind their backs.
Finally General Sundiata called a huge meeting of the people,
and he brought before them the chiefs of all the villages he
had defeated and gave them back their spears of chief hood
rank, and then he established among those chiefs the bonds
of peace, which would last among them for the next one
hundred rains. Kunta and his mates went dreamily to their
beds, never prouder to be Mandinkas. As the next moon of
training began, drum talk reached the jujuo telling of new
visitors to be expected within the next two days. The
excitement with which the news of any visitors would have
been received, after so long since the fathers and brothers
had come to see them, was doubled when the boys learned
that the sender of the message was the drummer of Juffure’s
champion wrestling team, which was coming to conduct
special lessons for the trainees. Late in the afternoon of the
next day, the drums announced their arrival even earlier than
expected. But the boys’ pleasure at seeing all the familiar
faces again was forgotten when, without a word, the wrestlers
grabbed them and began to flip them onto the ground harder
than they had ever been thrown in their lives. And every boy
was bruised and hurting when the wrestlers divided them into
smaller groups to grapple one another, as the champions
supervised. Kunta had never imagined there were so many
wrestling holds, nor how effectively they could work if used
correctly. And the champions kept drumming into the boys’
ears that it was knowledge and expertness and not strength
that made the difference between being an ordinary wrestler
and a champion. Still, as they demonstrated the holds for their
pupils, the boys couldn’t help admiring their bulging muscles
as much as their skill in using them. Around the fire that night,
the drummer from Juffure chanted the names arid the feats of
great Mandinka wrestling champions of even a hundred rains
in the past, and when it was the boys’ time for bed, the
wrestlers left the jujuo to return to Juffure. Two days later came
news of another visitor. This time the message was brought by
a runner from Juffure–a young man of the fourth kafo whom
Kunta and his mates knew well, though in his own new
manhood, he acted as if he never had seen these third-kafo
children. Without so much as a glance at them, he ran up to
the kin tango and announced, between deep breaths, that
Kujali N’jai, a griot well known throughout The Gambia, would
soon spend one full day at the jujuo. In three days he arrived,
accompanied by several young men of his family. He was
much older than any of the griots Kunta had seen before–so
old, in fact, that he made the kin tango seem young. After
gesturing for the boys to squat in a semicircle about him, the
old man began to talk of how he became what he was. He told
them how, over years of study from young manhood, every
griot had buried deep in his mind the records of the
ancestors. “How else could you know of the great deeds of
the ancient kings, holy men, hunters, and warriors who came
hundreds of rains before us? Have you met them?” asked the
old man. “No! The history of our people is carried to the future
in here.” And he tapped his gray head. The question in the
mind of every boy was answered by the old griot: Only the
sons of griots could become griots. Indeed, it was their
solemn duty to become griots. Upon finishing their manhood
training, these boys–like those grandsons of his own who sat
beside him here today–would begin studying and traveling
with selected elders, hearing over and over again the
historical names and stories as they had been passed down.
And in due time, each young man would know that special
part of the forefathers’ history in the finest and fullest detail,
just as it had been told to his father and his father’s father. And
the day would come when that boy would become a man and
have sons to whom he would tell those stories, so that the
events of the distant past would forever live. When the awed
boys had wolfed down their evening meal and rushed back to
gather again around the old griot, he thrilled them until late into
the night with stories his own father had passed down to him–
about the great black empires that had ruled Africa hundreds
of rains before. “Long before toubob ever put his foot in
Africa,” the old griot said, there was the Empire of Benin,
ruled by an all- powerful King called the Oba, whose every
wish was obeyed instantly. But the actual governing of Benin
was done by trusted counselors of the Oba, whose full time
was needed just for making the necessary sacrifices to
appease the forces of evil and for his proper attentions to a
harem of more than a hundred wives. But even before Benin
was a yet richer kingdom called Songhai, said the griot.
Song- had’s capital city was Gao, filled with fine houses for
black princes and rich merchants who lavishly entertained
traveling tradesmen who brought much gold to buy goods.
“Nor was that the richest kingdom,” said the old man. And he
told the boys of ancestral Ghana, in which an entire town was
populated with only the King’s court. And King Kanissaai had
a thousand horses, each of which had three servants and its
own urinal made of copper. Kunta could hardly believe his
ears. “And each evening,” said the griot, “When King
Kanissaai would emerge from his palace, a thousand fires
would be lit, lighting up all between the heavens and the earth.
And the servants of the great King would bring forth food
enough to serve the ten thousand people who gathered there
each evening. ” Here he paused, and exclamations of wonder
could not be restrained by the boys, who knew well that no
sound should be made as a griot talked, but neither he nor
even the kin tango himself seemed to notice their rudeness.
Putting into his mouth half of a kola nut and offering the other
half- to the kin tango who accepted it with pleasure, the griot
drew the skirt of his robe closer about his legs against the chill
of the early night and resumed his stories. “But even Ghana
was not the richest black kingdom!” he exclaimed. “The very
richest, the very oldest of them all was the kingdom of ancient
Mali!” Like the other empires, Mali had its cities, its farmers,
its artisans, its blacksmiths, tanners, dyers, and weavers, said
the old griot. But Mali’s enormous wealth came from its farflung
trade routes in salt and gold and copper. “Altogether
Mali was four months of travel long and four months of travel
wide,” said the griot, “and the greatest of all its cities was the
fabled Timbuktu!” The major center of learning in all Africa, it
was populated by thousands of scholars, made even more
numerous by a steady parade of visiting wise men seeking to
increase their knowledge–so many that some of the biggest
merchants sold nothing but parchments and books. “There is
not a mar about not a teacher in the smallest village, whose
knowledge has not come at least in part from Timbuktu,” said
the griot, When finally the kin tango stood up and thanked the
griot for the generosity with which he had shared with them the
treasures of his mind, Kunta and the others–for the first time
since they came to the jujuo–actually dared to voice their
displeasure, for the time had come for them to go to bed. The
kin tango chose to ignore this impertinence, at least for the
time being, and sternly commanded them to their huts–but not
before they had a chance to beg him to urge the griot to come
back and visit them again. They were still thinking and talking
of the wondrous tales the griot bad told them when–six days
later–word came that a famous moro would soon be visiting
the camp. The moro was the highest grade of teacher in The
Gambia; indeed, there were only a few of them, and so wise
were they–after many rains of study–that their job was to
teach not schoolboys but other teachers, such as the arafang
of Juffure. Even the kin tango showed unusual concern about
this visitor, ordering the entire jujuo to be thoroughly cleaned,
with the dirt raked and then brushed with leafy branches to a
smoothness that would capture the honor of the fresh
footprints of the moro when he arrived. Then the kin tango
assembled the boys in the compound and told them, “The
advice and the blessings of this man who will be with us is
sought not only by ordinary people but also by village chiefs
and even by kings.” When the moro arrived the next morning,
five of his students were with him, each carrying head bundles
that Kunta knew would contain treasured Arabic books and
parchment manuscripts such as those from ancient Timbukto.
As the old man passed through the gate, Kunta and his
mates joined the kin tango and his assistants on their knees,
with their foreheads touching the ground. When the moro had
blessed them and their jujuo, they rose and seated
themselves respectfully around him as he opened his books
and began to read–first from the Koran, then from such
unheard-of books as the Taureta La Musa, the Zabora Dawith
and the Lingeeli la Isa, which he said were known to
“Christians” as The Pentateuch of Moses, The Psalms of
David and The Book of Isaiah. Each time the moro would
open or close a book, roll or unroll a manuscript, he would
press it to his forehead and mutter, “Amen!” When he had
finished reading, the old man put his books aside and spoke
to them of great events and people from the Christian Koran,
which was known as the Holy Bible. He spoke of Adam and
Eve, of Joseph and his brethren; of Moses, David, and
Solomon; of the death of Abel. And he spoke to them of great
men of more recent history, such as Djoulou Kara Naini,
known to the toubob as Alexander the Great, a mighty King of
gold and silver whose sun had shown over half of the world.
Before the moro finally rose to leave that night, he reviewed
what they already knew of the five daily prayers to Allah, and
he instructed them thoroughly in how to conduct themselves
inside the sacred mosque of their village, which they would
enter for their first time when they returned home as men.
Then he and his students had to hurry in order to reach the
next place on his busy schedule, and the boys honored him–
as the kin tango had instructed them–by singing one of the
men’s songs they had learned from the jalli kea: “One
generation passes on…. Another generation comes and
goes…. But Allah abides forever.” In his hut after the moro had
gone that night, Kunta lay awake thinking how so many things-
-indeed, nearly everything they had learned–all tied together.
The past seemed with the present, the present with the future;
the dead with the living and those yet to be born; he himself
with his family, his mates, his village, his tribe, his Africa; the
world of man with the world of animals and growing things–
they all lived with Allah. Kunta felt very small, yet very large.
Perhaps, he thought, this is what it means to become a man.
CHAPTER 25
The time had come for that which made Kunta and every other
boy shudder to think of: the kasas boyo operation, which
would purify a boy and prepare him to become a father of
many sons. They knew it was coming, but when it came it was
without warning. One day as the sun reached the noontime
position, one of the kin tango assistants gave what seemed to
be only a routine order for a kafo to line up in the compound,
which the boys did as quickly as usual. But Kunta felt a twinge
of fear when the kin tango himself came from his hut, as he
rarely did at midday, and walked before them. “Hold out your
fotos,” he commanded. They hesitated, not believing–or
wanting to believe–what they had heard. “Now!” he shouted.
Slowly and shyly, they obeyed, each keeping his eyes on the
ground as he reached inside his loincloth. Working their way
from either end of the line, the kin- tango’s assistants wrapped
around the head of each boy’s foto a short length of cloth
spread with a green paste made of a pounded leaf. “Soon
your fotos will have no feeling,” the kin tango said, ordering
them back into their huts. Huddled inside, ashamed and afraid
of what would happen next, the boys waited in silence until
about mid after- Boon, when again they were ordered outside,
where they stood watching as a number of men from Juffure–
the Earners, brothers, and uncles who had come before, and
others–filed in through the gate. Omoro was among them, but
this time Kunta pretended that he didn’t see his father. The
men formed themselves into a line facing the boys and
chanted together: “This thing to be done… also has been done
to us… as to the forefathers before us… so that you also will
become… all of us men together.” Then the kin tango ordered
the boys back into their huts once again. Night was falling
when they heard many drums suddenly begin to pound just
outside the jujuo. Ordered out of their buts, they saw bursting
through the gate about a dozen leaping, shouting kankurang
dancers. In leafy branch costumes and bark masks, they
sprang about brandishing their spears among the terrified
boys, “and then–just as abruptly as they had appeared–were
gone. Almost numb with fear, the boys now heard and followed
dumbly the kin tango order to seat themselves close together
with their backs against the jujuo’s bamboo fence. The fathers,
uncles, and older brothers stood nearby, this time chanting,
“You soon will return to home… and to your farms.. . and in
time you will marry… and life everlasting will spring from your
loins. ” One of the kin- tango’s assistants called out one boy’s
name. As he got up, the assistant motioned him behind a long
screen of woven bamboo. Kunta couldn’t see or hear what
happened after that, but a few moments later, the boy
reappeared–with a bloodstained cloth between his legs.
Staggering slightly, he was half carried by the other assistant
back to his place along the bamboo fence. Another boy’s
name was called; then another, and another, and finally: ”
Kunta Kinte! ” Kunta was petrified. But he made himself get
up and walk behind the screen. Inside were four men, one of
whom ordered him to lie down on his back. He did so; his
shaking legs wouldn’t have supported him any longer anyway.
The men then leaned down, grasped him firmly, and lifted his
thighs upward. Just before closing his eyes, Kunta saw the kin
tango bending over him with something in his hands. Then he
felt the cutting pain. It was even worse than he thought it would
be, though not as bad as it would have been without the
numbing paste. In a moment he was bandaged tightly, and an
assistant helped him back outside, where he sat, weak and
dazed, alongside the others who had already been behind the
screen. They didn’t dare to look at one another. But the thing
they had feared above all else had now been done. As the
fotos of the kafo began healing, a general air of jubilation rose
within the jujuo, for gone forever was the indignity of being
mere boys in body as well as in mind. Now they were very
nearly men–and they were-boundless in their gratitude and
reverence for the kin tango And he, in turn, began to see
Kunta’s kafo with different eyes. The old, wrinkled, gray-haired
elder whom they had slowly come to love was sometimes
seen even to smile now. And very casually, when talking to the
kafo, he or his assistants would say, “You men”–and to Kunta
and his mates, it seemed as unbelievable as it was beautiful
to hear. Soon afterward the fourth new moon arrived, and two
or three members of Kunta’s kafo, at the kin tango personal
order, began to leave the jujuo each night and trot all the way
to the sleeping village of Juffure, where they would slip like
shadows into their own mothers’ storehouses, steal as much
couscous, dried meats, and millet as they could carry, and
then race back with it to the jujuo, where it was gleefully
cooked the next day”–to prove yourselves smarter than all
women, even your mother,” the kin tango had told them. But
that next day, of course, those boys’ mothers would boast to
their friends how they had heard their sons prowling and had
lain awake listening with pride. There was a new feeling now
in the evenings at the jujuo. Nearly always, Kunta’s kafo would
squat in a semicircle around the kin tango Most of the time he
remained as stem in manner as before, but now he talked to
them not as bumbling little boys but as young men of his own
village. Sometimes he spoke to them about the qualities of
manhood–chief among which, after fearlessness, was total
honesty in all things. And sometimes he spoke to them about
the forefathers. Worshipful regard was a duty owed by the
living to those who dwelled with Allah, he told them. He asked
each boy to name the ancestor he remembered best; Cunta
named his Grandma Yaisa, and the kin tango said hat each of
the ancestors the boys had named–as was the way of
ancestors–was petitioning Allah in the best inter- ssts of the
living. Another evening, the kin tango told them how in one’s
village, every person who lived there was equally important to
that village; from the newest baby to the oldest elder. As lew
men, they must therefore learn to treat everyone with She
same respect, and–as the foremost of their manhood iuties–
to protect the welfare of every man, woman, and: hild in Juffure
as they would their own. “When you return home,” said the kin
tango “you will begin to serve Juffure as its eyes and ears. You
will be ex- aected to stand guard over the village–beyond the
gates as lookouts for toubob and other savages, and in the
fields as sentries to keep the crops safe from scavengers.
You will ilso be charged with the responsibility of inspecting
the ivomen’s cooking pots–including those of your own
mothsrs–to make sure they are kept clean, and you will be
expected to reprimand them most severely if any dirt or
insects are found inside.” The boys could hardly wait to be-; in
their duties. Though all but the oldest of them were still too
young to ire am of the responsibilities they would assume
when they reached the fourth kafo, they knew that some day,
as men rf fifteen to nineteen rains, they would be appointed to
the important job of carrying messages–like the young man
who had brought them word of the moro’s visit–between
Fuffure and other villages. It would have been hard for Kunta’s
kafo to imagine such a thing, but those old enough So be
messengers longed for nothing more than to stop being
nessengers; when they reached the fifth kafo at twenty rains,
hey would graduate to really important work–assisting the
tillage elders as emissaries and negotiators in all dealings
with other villages. Men of Onaoro’s age–over thirty–rose
gradually in rank and responsibility with each passing rain until
they themselves acquired the honored status of siders. Kunta
had often proudly watched Omoro sitting on the edges of the
Council of elders, and looked forward to the day when his
father would enter the inner circle of those who would inherit
the mantle of office from such revered leaders as the kin
tango when they were called to Allah. It was no longer easy for
Kunta and the others to pay attention as they should to
everything the kin tango said. It seemed impossible to them
that so much could have happened in the past four moons and
that they were really about to become men. The past few days
seemed to last longer than the moons that preceded them, but
finally–with the fourth moon high and full in the heavens–the
kin tango assistants ordered the kafo to line up shortly after
the evening meal. Was this the moment for which they had
waited? Kunta looked around for their fathers and brothers,
who would surely be there for the ceremony. They were
nowhere to be seen. And where was the kin tango His eyes
searched the compound and found him–standing at the gate
of the jujuo–just as he swung it open wide, turned to them, and
called out: “Men of Juffure, return to your village!” For a
moment they stood rooted; then they rushed up whooping and
grabbed and hugged their kin tango and his assistants, who
pretended to be offended by such impertinence. Four moons
before, as the hood was being lifted from his head in this very
compound, Kunta would have found it difficult to believe that
he would be sorry to leave this place, or that he would come to
love the stern old man who stood before them on that day; but
he felt both emotions now. Then his thoughts turned homeward
and he was racing and shouting with the others out the gate
and down the path to Juffure. They hadn’t gone very far before,
as if upon some unspoken signal, their voices were stilled and
their pace slowed by the thoughts they all shared, each in his
own way–of what they were leaving behind, and of what lay
ahead of them. This time they didn’t need the stars to find their
way.
CHAPTER 26
“Aiee! Aiee!” The women’s happy shrieks rang out, and he
people were rushing from their huts, laughing, danc- ng, and
clapping their hands as Kunta’s kafo–and those who had
turned fifteen and become fourth kafo while they were away at
the jujuo–strode in through the village gate it the break of
dawn. The new men walked slowly, with what they hoped was
dignity, and they didn’t speak or smile–at first. When he saw
his mother running toward him, Cunta felt like dashing to meet
her, and he couldn’t stop is face from lighting up, but he made
himself continue walking at the same measured pace. Then
Binta was upon dm–arms around his neck, hands caressing
his cheeks, ears welling in her eyes, murmuring his name.
Kunta pernitted this only briefly before he drew away, being
now i man; but he made it seem as if he did so only to get a
letter look at the yowling bundle cradled snugly in the ling
across her back. Reaching inside, he lifted the baby mt with
both hands. “So this is my brother Madi!” he shouted happily,
hold- ng him high in the air. Binta beamed at his side as he
walked toward her hut with the baby in his arms–making faces
and cooing and queezing the plump little cheeks. But Kunta
wasn’t so aken with his little brother that he failed to notice the
herd if naked children that followed close behind them with
yes as wide as their mouths. Two or three were at his; nees,
and others darted in and out among Binta and the ther
women, who were all exclaiming over how strong and healthy
Kunta looked, how manly he’d become. He >re tended not to
hear, but it was music to his ears. Kunta wondered where
Omoro was, and where Lamin vas–remembering abruptly that
his little brother would >e away grazing the goats. He had sat
down inside Binta’s hut before he noticed that one of the
bigger first-kafo children had followed them inside and now
stood staring at him and clinging to Binta’s skirt. “Hello,
Kunta,” said the little boy. It was Suwadu! Kunta couldn’t
believe it. When he had left for manhood training, Suwadu
was just something underfoot, too small to take notice of
except when he was annoying Kunta with his eternal whining.
Now, within the space of four moons, he seemed to have
grown taller, and he was beginning to talk; he had become a
person. Giving the baby back to Binta, he picked up Suwadu
and swung him high up to the roof of Binta’s hut, until his little
brother yelped with delight. When he finished visiting with
Suwadu, who ran outside to see some of the other new men,
the hut fell silent. Brimming over with joy and pride, Binta felt
no need to speak. Kunta did. He wanted to tell her how much
he had missed her and how it gladdened him to be home. But
he couldn’t find the words. And he knew it wasn’t the sort of
thing a man should say to a woman–even to his mother.
“Where is my father?” he asked finally. “He’s cutting thatch
grass for your hut,” said Binta. In his excitement, Kunta had
nearly forgotten that, as a man, he would now have his own
private hut. He walked outside and hurried to the place where
his father had always told him one could cut the best quality of
roofing thatch. Omoro saw him coming, and Kunta’s heart
raced as he saw his father begin walking to meet him. They
shook hands in the manner of men, each looking deeply into
the other’s eyes, seeing the other for the first time as man to
man. Kunta felt almost weak with emotion, and they were
silent for a moment. Then Omoro said, as if he were
commenting on the weather, that he had acquired for Kunta a
hut whose previous owner had married and built a new house.
Would he like to inspect the hut now? Kunta said softly that he
would and they walked along together, with Omoro doing most
of the talking, since Kunta was still having trouble finding
words. The hut’s mud walls needed as many repairs as the
thatching. But Kunta hardly noticed or cared, for this was his
own private hut, and it was all the way across the village from
his mother’s. He didn’t allow himself to show his satisfaction,
of course, let alone to speak of it [nstead, he told Omoro only
that he would make the epairs himself. Kunta could fix the
walls, said Omoro, sut he would like to finish the roof repairs
he had already leg un Without another word, he turned and
headed back: o the thatch-grass field–leaving Kunta standing
there, grateful for the everyday manner with which his father
iad begun their new relationship as men. Kunta spent most of
the afternoon covering every; orner of Juffure, filling his eyes
with the sight of all the iearly remembered faces, familiar huts
and haunts–the Ullage well, the schoolyard, the baobab and
silk-cotton: rees. He hadn’t realized how homesick he had
been until ie began to bask in the greetings of everyone he
passed. He wished it was time for Lamin to return with the
goats, and found himself missing one other very special
person,; ven if she was a woman. Finally–not caring whether it
was something a man should properly do–he headed for he
small, weathered hut of old Nyo Boto. “Grandmother!” he
called at the door. “Who is it?” came the reply in a high,
cracked, irritable one. “Guess, Grandmotheri” said Kunta, and
he went inside the hut. It took his eyes a few moments to see
her better in the iim light. Squatting beside a bucket and
plucking long Sbers from a slab of baobab bark that she had
been soaking with water from the bucket, she peered sharply
at lim for a while before speaking. “Kunta!” “It’s so good to
see you. Grandmother!” he exclaimed. Nyo Boto returned to
her plucking of the fibers. “Is your mother well?” she asked,
and Kunta assured her Shat Binta was. He was a little taken
aback, for her manner was almost is if he hadn’t even been
away anywhere, as if she hadn’t noticed that he had become a
man. “I thought of you often while I was away–each time [
touched the sap hie charm you put on my arm.” She only
grunted, not even looking up from her work. He apologized for
interrupting her and quickly left, ieeply hurt and terribly
confused. He wouldn’t understand until much later that her
rebuff had hurt Nyo Boto sven more than it did him; she had
acted as she knew a woman must toward one who could no
longer seek comfort at her skirts. Still troubled, Kunta was
walking slowly back toward his new hut when he heard a
familiar commotion: bleating goats, barking dogs, and
shouting boys. It was the second kafo returning from their
afternoon’s work in the bush. Lamin would be among them.
Kunta began to search their faces anxiously as the boys
approached. Then Lamin saw him, shouted his name, and
came dashing, wreathed in smiles. But he stopped short a
few feet away when he saw his brother’s cool expression, and
they stood looking at each other. It was finally Kunta who
spoke. “Hello.” “Hello, Kunta.” Then they looked at each other
some more. Pride shone in Lamin’s eyes, but Kunta saw also
the same hurt he had just felt in the hut of Nyo Boto, and
uncertainty about just what to make of his new big brother.
Kunta was thinking that the way they were both acting wasn’t
as he would have had it be, but it was necessary that a man
be regarded with a certain amount of respect, even by his own
brother. Lamin was the first to speak again: “Your two goats
are both big with kids.” Kunta was delighted; that meant he
would soon own four, maybe even five goats, if one of those
nannies was big with twins. But he didn’t smile or act
surprised. “That’s good news,” he said, with even less
enthusiasm than he wanted to show. Not knowing what else to
say, Lamin dashed away without another word, hollering for
his wuolo dogs to reassemble his goats, which had begun to
wander. Binta’s face kept a set, tight expression as she
assisted Kunta in moving to his own hut. His old clothes were
all outgrown, she said, and with her tone properly respectful,
added that whenever he had time for her to measure him
between the important things he had to do, she would sew him
some new clothes. Since he owned not much more than his
bow and arrows and his slingshot, Binta kept murmuring,
“You’ll need this” and “You’ll need that,” until she had provided
him with such household essentials as a pallet, some bowls, a
stool, and a prayer rug she had woven while he was away.
With each new thing, as he had always heard his father do,
Kunta would grunt, as if he could think of no objection to haveng
it in his house. When she noticed him scratching his lead,
she offered to inspect his scalp for ticks, and he bluntly told
her “No!,” ignoring the grumbling sounds she nade afterward.
It was nearly midnight when Kunta finally slept, for nuch was on
his mind. And it seemed to him that his syes had hardly closed
before the crowing cocks had waked him, and then came the
singsong call of the ilimamo to the mosque, for what would be
the first morn- ng prayer that he and his mates would be
allowed to at- end with the other men of Juffure. Dressing
quickly, Kunta took his new prayer rug and fell in among his
safo as, with heads bowed and rolled prayer rugs under iheir
arms–as if they had done it all their lives–they altered the
sacred mosque behind the other men of the village. Inside,
Kunta and the others watched and copied svery act and
utterance of the older men, being especially; areful to be
neither too soft nor too loud in their reciting rf the prayers. After
prayers, Binta brought breakfast to her new man’s hut. Setting
the bowl of steaming couscous before Kunta–who just grunted
again, not letting his face say any- Shing–Binta left quickly,
and Kunta ate without pleasure, Irritated by a suspicion that
she had seemed to be suppressing something like mirth. After
breakfast, he joined his mates in undertaking their duties as
the eyes and ears of the village with a iiligence their elders
found equally amusing. The women; ould hardly turn around
without finding one of the new men demanding to inspect their
cooking pots for insects. And rummaging around outside
people’s huts and all around the village fence, they found
hundreds of spots where the state of repair failed to measure
up to their exacting standards. Fully a dozen of them drew up
buckets of well water, tasting carefully from the gourd dipper in
hopes of detecting a saltiness or a muddiness or something
else unhealthy. They were disappointed, but the fish and turtle
that were kept in the well to eat insects were removed anyway
and replaced with fresh ones. The new men, in short, were
everywhere. “They are thick as fleas!”old Nyo Boto snorted as
Kunta approached a stream where she was pounding laundry
on a rock, and he all but sprinted off in another direction. He
also took special care to stay clear of any known place where
Binta might be, telling himself that although she was his
mother, he would show her no special favors; that, indeed, he
would deal firmly with her if she ever made it necessary. After
all, she was a woman.
CHAPTER 27
Juffure was so small, and its kafo of diligent new men so
numerous, it soon seemed to Kunta that nearly every roof,
wall, calabash, and cooking pot in the village had been
inspected, cleaned, repaired, or replaced moments before he
got to it. But he was more pleased than disappointed, for it
gave him more time to spend farming the small plot assigned
to his use by the Council of Elders. All new men grew their
own couscous or ground nuts some to live on and the rest to
trade–with those who grew too little to feed their families–for
things they needed more than food. A young man who tended
his crops well, made good trades, and managed his goats
wisely–perhaps swapping a dozen goats for a female calf that
would grow up and have other calves–could move ahead in
the world and become a man of substance by the time he
reached twenty- five or thirty rains and began to think about
taking a wife and raising sons of his own. Within a few moons
after his return, Kunta had grown so much more than he could
eat himself, and made such shrewd trades for this or that
household possession to adorn his hut, that Binta began to
grumble about it within his hearing. He had so many stools,
wicker mats, food bowls, gourds, and sundry other objects in
his hut, she would mutter, that there was hardly any room left
inside for Kunta. But he charitably chose to ignore her
impertinence, since he slept now upon a fine bed of woven
eeds over a springy bamboo mattress that she had spent alfa
moon making for him. In his hut, along with several sap hies
he had acquired n exchange for crops from his farm plot, he
kept a num-? er of other potent spiritual safeguards: the
perfumed ex- iracts of certain plants and barks which, like
every other Mandinka man, Kunta rubbed onto his forehead,
upper inns, and thighs each night before going to bed. It was
relieved that this magical essence would protect a man From
possession by evil spirits while he slept. It would ilso make
him smell good a thing that, along with his ippearance, Kunta
had begun to think about. He and the rest of his kafo were
becoming increasingly exasperated about a matter that had
been rankling their manly pride for many moons. When they
went off to man- liood training, they had left behind a group of
skinny, giggling, silly little girls who played almost as hard as
the boys. Then, after only four moons away, they had returned
as new men to find these same girls, with whom they had
grown up, flouncing about wherever one looked, poking out
their mango-sized breasts, tossing their heads and arms,
showing off their jangly new earrings, beads, and bracelets.
What irritated Kunta and the others wasn’t so much that the
girls were behaving so absurdly, but that they seemed to be
doing so exclusively for the benefit of men at least ten rains
older than themselves. For new men like Kunta, these
maidens of marriageable age fourteen and fifteen had
scarcely a glance except to sneer or laugh. He and his mates
finally grew so disgusted with these airs and antics that they
resolved to pay no further attention either to the girls or to the
all-too-willing older men they sought to entice with such fluttery
coyness. But Kunta’s foto would be as hard as his thumb
some mornings when he waked. Of course, it had been hard
many times before, even when he was Lamin’s age; but now it
was much different in the feeling, very deep and strong. And
Kunta couldn’t help putting his hand down under his bed cover
and tightly squeezing it. He also couldn’t help thinking about
things he and his mates had overheard about fotos being put
into women. One night dreaming for ever since he was a small
boy, Kunta had dreamed a great deal, even when he was
awake, Binta liked to say–he found himself watching a
harvest-festival seoruba, when the loveliest, longest-necked,
sootiest-black maiden there chose to fling down her headwrap
for him to pick up. When he did so, she rushed home
shouting, “Kunta likes me!,” and after careful consideration,
her parents gave permission for them to marry. Omoro and
Binta also agreed, and both fathers bargained for the bride
price. “She is beautiful,” said Omoro, “but my concerns are of
her true value as my son’s wife. Is she a strong, hard worker?
Is she of pleasant disposition in the home? Can she cook well
and care for children? And above all, is she guaranteed a
virgin?” The answers were all yes, so a price was decided
and a date set’ for the wedding. Kunta built a fine new mud
house, and both mothers cooked bountiful delicacies, to give
guests the best impression. And on the wedding day, the
adults, children, goats, chickens, dogs, parrots, and monkeys
all but drowned out the musicians they had hired. When the
bride’s party arrived, the praise singer shouted of the fine
families being joined together. Yet louder shouts rose when
the bride’s best girlfriends roughly shoved her inside Kunta’s
new house. Grinning and waving to everyone, Kunta followed
her and drew the curtain across the door. When she had
seated herself on his bed, he sang to her a famous ancestral
song of love: “Mandumbe, your long neck is very beautiful….”
Then they lay down on Soft cured hides and she kissed him
tenderly, and they clung together very tightly. And then the thing
happened, as Kunta had come to imagine it from the ways it
had been described to him. It was even greater than he had
been told, and the feeling grew and grew–until finally he burst.
Jerking suddenly awake, Kunta lay very still for a long
moment, trying to figure out what had happened. Then, moving
his hand down between his legs, he felt the warm wetness on
himself–and on his bed. Frightened and alarmed, he leaped
up, felt for a cloth, and wiped himself off, and the bed, too.
Then, sitting there in the darkness, his fear was slowly
overtaken by embarrassment, his embarrassment by shame,
his shame by pleasure, and his pleasure, finally, by a kind of
pride. Had this ever happened to any of his mates? he
wondered. Though he hoped it had, he also hoped it hadn’t,
for perhaps this is what lap pens when one really becomes a
man, he thought; and ie wanted to be the first. But Kunta knew
that he would lever know, for this experience and even these
thoughts weren’t the kind he could ever share with anyone.
Finally, exhausted and exhilarated, he lay down again and
soon ell into a mercifully dreamless sleep.
CHAPTER 28
Kunta knew every man, woman, child, dog, and goat in fuffure,
he told himself one afternoon while he sat eating unch beside
his plot of ground nuts and in the course of us new duties, he
either saw or spoke with almost all of them nearly every day.
Why, then, did he feel so alone? Was he an orphan? Did he
not have a father who treated dim as one man should
another? Did he not have a mother who tended dutifully to his
needs? Did he not have brothers to look up to him? As a new
man, was he not their idol? Did he not have the friendship of
those with whom tie had played in the mud as children, herded
goats as boys, returned to Juffure as men? Had he not earned
the respect of his elders–and the envy of his kafo mates–for
husbanding his farm plot into seven goats, three chick- ins,
and a splendidly furnished hut before reaching his sixteenth
birthday? He couldn’t deny it. And yet he was lonely. Omoro
was too busy to spend even as much time with Kunta as he
had when he had only one son and fewer responsibilities in
the village. Binta was busy too, taking care of Kunta’s younger
brothers, but his mother and he had little to say to one another
anyway. Even he and Lamin were no longer close; while he
had been away at the jujuo, Suwadu had become Lamin’s
adoring shadow as Lamin had once been Kunta’s, and Kunta
watched with mixed emotions while Lamin’s attitude toward
his little brother warmed from irritation to toleration to
affection. Soon they were inseparable, and this had left as
little room for Kunta as it had for Madi, who was too young yet
to join them but old enough to whine because they wouldn’t let
him. On days when the two older boys couldn’t get out of their
mother’s hut fast enough, of course, Binta would often order
them to take Madi along, so that she could get him out from
underfoot, and Kunta would have to smile in spite of himself at
the sight of his three brothers marching around the village, one
behind the other, in the order of their births, with the two in
front staring glumly ahead while the little one, smiling happily,
brought up the rear, almost running to keep up. No one walked
behind Kunta any longer, and not often did anyone choose to
walk beside him either, for his kafo mates were occupied
almost every waking hour with their new duties and–perhaps,
like him–with their own broodings about what had so far
proved to be the dubious rewards of manhood. True, they had
been given their own farm plots and were beginning to collect
goats and other possessions. But the plots were small, the
work hard, and their possessions were embarrassingly few in
comparison to those of older men. They had also been made
the eyes and ears of the village, but the cooking pots were
kept clean without their supervision, and nothing ever
trespassed in the fields except occasional baboon families or
dense flocks of birds. Their elders, it soon became clear, got
to do all the really important jobs, and as if to rub it in, gave the
new men only what they felt was the appearance of respect,
as they had been given only the appearance of responsibility.
Indeed, when they paid any attention at all to the younger men,
the elders seemed to have as much difficulty as the young
girls of the village in restraining themselves from laughter,
even when one of them performed the most challenging task
without a mistake. Well, someday he would be one of those
older men, Kunta told himself, and he would wear the mantle
of manhood not only with more dignity but also with more
compassion and understanding toward younger men than he
and his mates received now. Feeling restless–and a little
sorry for himself–that evening, Kunta left his hut to take a
solitary walk. Though he had no destination in mind, his feet
drew him toward the circle of rapt children’s faces glowing in
the light of rie campfire around which the old grandmothers
were elling their nightly stories to the first kafo of the village.
Stopping close enough to listen–but not close enough o be
noticed listening–Kunta squatted down on his launches and
pretended to be inspecting a rock at his eet while one of the
wrinkled old women waved her kinny arms and jumped around
the clearing in front of he children as she acted out her story of
the four thousand rave warriors of the King of Kasoon who
had been [riven into battle by the thunder of five hundred great
var drums and the trumpeting of five hundred elephant- usk
horns. It was a story he had heard many times around he fires
as a child, and as he looked at the wide-eyed faces f his
brothers–Madi in the front row and Suwadu in the ck row–it
somehow made him feel sad to hear it again. With a sigh, he
rose and walked slowly away–his de- larture as unnoticed as
his arrival had been. At the fire yhere Lamin sat with other
boys his age chanting their Koranic verses, and the fire where
Binta sat with other aothers gossiping about husbands,
households, children, looking, sewing, makeup, and hairdos,
he felt equally unrelcome. Passing them by, he found himself
finally ‘eneath the spreading branches of the baobab where
the Then of Juffure sat around the fourth fire discussing village
‘usiness and other matters of gravity. As he had felt too “Id to
be wanted around the first fire, he felt too young to be wanted
around this one. But he had no place else to go, so Kunta
seated himself among those in the outer; ircle–beyond those
of Omoro’s age who sat closer to the fire, and those of the kin
tango age, who sat closest, imong the Council of Elders. As
he did so, he heard one? f them ask: ” Can anyone say how
many of us are getting stolen? ” They were discussing slave
taking, which had been the main subject around the men’s fire
for the more than one ron dred rains that toubob had been
stealing people and shipping them in chains to the kingdom of
white cannibals across the sea. There was silence for a little
while, and then the alinamo said, “We can only thank Allah that
it’s less now han it was.” “There are fewer of us left to steal!”
said an angry elder. “I listen to the drums and count the lost,”
said the kin tango “Fifty to sixty each new moon just from
along our part of the belong would be my guess.” No one said
anything to that, and he added, “There is no way, of course, to
count the losses farther inland, and farther up the river.” “Why
do we count only those taken away by the tou- bob?” asked
the arafang. “We must count also the burned baobabs where
villages once stood. He has killed more in fires and in fighting
him than he has ever taken away!” The men stared at the fire
for a long time, and then another elder broke the silence:
“Toubob could never do this without help from our own people.
Mandinkas, Fulas, Wolofs, Jolas–none of The Gambia’s
tribes is without its slatee traitors. As a child I saw these
slatees beating those like themselves to walk faster for the
toubobi” “For toubob money, we turn against our own kind,”
said Juffure’s senior elder. “Greed and treason–these are the
things toubob has given us in exchange for those he has
stolen away.” No one talked again for a while, and the fire
sputtered quietly. Then the kin tango spoke again: “Even
worse than toubob’s money is that he lies for nothing and he
cheats with method, as naturally as he breathes. That’s what
gives him the advantage over us.” A few moments passed,
and then a young man of the kafo ahead of Kunta’s asked,
“Will toubob never change?” “That will be,” said one of the
elders, “when the river flows backwardi” Soon the fire was a
pile of smoking embers, and the men began to get up, stretch
themselves, wish one another good night, and head home to
their huts. But five young men of the third kafo stayed behind–
one to cover with dust the warm ashes of all the fires, and the
rest, including Kunta, to take the late shift as village lookouts
beyond each corner of Juffure’s high bamboo fence. After
such alarming talk around the fire, Kunta knew he would have
no trouble staying awake, but he didn’t look forward to
spending this particular night beyond the safety of the village.
Ambling through Juffure and out the gate with what he hoped
was nonchalance, Kunta waved to his fellow guards and made
his way along the outside of the fence–past the sharp-thomed
bushes piled thickly against it, and the pointed stakes
concealed beneath them–to a leafy hiding place that afforded
him a silvery view of the surrounding countryside on this
moonlit night. Getting as comfortable as he could, he slung his
spear across his lap, drew up his knees, clasped his arms
around them for warmth, and settled in for the night Scanning
the bush with straining eyes for any sign of movement, he
listened to the shrilling of crickets, the eerie whistling of night
birds the distant howling of hyenas, and the shrieks of unwary
animals taken by surprise, and he thought about the things the
men had said around the fire. When dawn came without
incident, he was almost as surprised that he hadn’t been set
upon by slave stealers as he was to realize that for the Brst
time in a moon, he hadn’t spent a moment worrying about his
personal problems.
CHAPTER 29
Fearly every day, it seemed to Kunta, Binta would irritate lim
about something. It wasn’t anything she would do or; ay, but in
other ways–little looks, certain tones of voice -Kunta could tell
she disapproved of something about im. It was worst when
Kunta added to his possessions ew things that Binta hadn’t
obtained for him herself. One morning, arriving to serve his
breakfast, Binta nearly dropped the steaming couscous upon
Kunta when she saw he was wearing his first dundiko not
sewn with her own lands. Feeling guilty for having traded a
cured hyena hide to get it, Kunta angrily offered her no
explanation, though he could feel that his mother was deeply
hurt. From that morning on, he knew that Binta never rought
his meals without her eyes raking every item in us hut to see if
there was anything else–a stool, a mat, i bucket, a plate, or a
pot–that she’d had nothing to do with. If something new had
appeared, Binta’s sharp eyes would never miss it. Kunta
would sit there fuming while she put on that look of not caring
and not noticing that he had seen her wear so many times
around Omoro, who knew as well as Kunta did that Binta
could hardly wait to get to the village well among her women
friends so that she could loudly bemoan her troubles which
was what all Mandinka women did when they disagreed with
their husbands. One day, before his mother arrived with the
morning meal, Kunta picked up a beautifully woven basket
that Jinna M’Baki, one of Juffure’s several widows, had given
him as a gift, and he set it just inside the door of his hut, where
his mother would be sure to all but stumble over it. The widow
was actually a little younger than Binta, it occurred to him.
While Kunta was still a second-kafo goatherd, her husband
had gone away to hunt and never returned. She lived quite
near Nyo Boto, whom Kunta often visited, and that was how
he and the widow had seen each other and come to speak to
each other as Kunta had grown older. It had annoyed Kunta
when the widow’s gift caused some of Kunta’s friends to tease
him about her reason for giving him a valuable bamboo
basket. When Binta arrived at his hut and saw it recognizing
the widow’s style of weaving she flinched as if the basket were
a scorpion before managing to compose herself. She didn’t
say a word about it, of course, but Kunta knew he had made
his point. He was no longer a boy, and it was time for her to
stop acting like his mother. He felt it was his own responsibility
to change her in that regard. It wasn’t something to speak to
Omoro about, for Kunta knew he couldn’t put himself into the
ridiculous position of asking Omoro’s advice on how to make
Binta respect her son the same as she did her husband.
Kunta thought about discussing his problem with Nyo Boto,
but changed his mind when he recalled how peculiarly she
had acted toward him upon his return from manhood training.
So Kunta kept his own counsel, and before long he decided
not to go any more into Binta’s hut, where he had lived most of
his life. And when Binta brought his meals, he would sit stiffly
silent while she set his food on the mat before him and left
without speaking or even looking at him. Kunta finally began
thinking seriously of seeking out some new eating
arrangement. Most of the other new young men still ate from
their mothers’ kitchens, but some were cooked for by an older
sister or a sister-in-law. If Binta got any worse, Kunta told
himself, he was going to find some other woman to cook for
him–perhaps the widow who had given him the woven basket.
He knew without asking that she would gladly cook for him–
and yet Kunta didn’t want to let her know that he was even
considering such a thing. In the meantime, he and his mother
continued to meet at mealtimes–and to act as if they didn’t
even see each other. Early one morning, returning from a night
of sentry duty out in the groundnut fields, Kunta saw hurrying
along the trail some distance ahead of him three young men
whom he could tell were about his own age, and whom he
knew had to be travelers from somewhere else. Shouting until
they turned around, he went running to meet and greet them.
They told Kunta they were from the village of Barra, a day and
a night of walking from Juffure, and they were on their way to
hunt for gold. They were of the Feloop tribe, which was a
branch of Mandinka, but he bad to listen carefully to
understand them, as they did to understand him. It made
Kunta remember his visit with his father to his uncles’ new
village, where he couldn’t understand what some people were
saying, although they lived only two or three days away from
Juffure. Kunta was intrigued by the trip the young men were
taking. He thought it might also interest some of his friends, so
he asked the young men to stop in his village for a day of
hospitality before they went on. But they graciously refused the
invitation, saying that they had to reach the place where the
gold could be panned by the third afternoon of travel. “But why
don’t you come along with us?” one of the young men asked
Kunta. Never having dreamed of such a thing, Kunta was so
taken aback that he found himself saying no, telling them that
as much as he appreciated the offer, he had much work to do
on his farm, as well as other duties. And the three young men
expressed their regret “If you should change your mind,
please join us,” one said. And they got down on their knees
and drew in the dust to show Kunta where the gold-hunting
place was located–about two days and nights of travel
beyond Juffure. The father of one of the boys, a traveling
musician, had told them where it was. Kunta walked along
talking with his newfound friends until they came to where the
travelers’ trail forked. After the three men took the fork that led
on past Juffure–and turned to wave back to him–Kunta
walked slowly home. He was thinking hard as he entered his
hut and lay down on his bed, and though he had been awake
all night, he still couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Perhaps he might
go to hunt gold after all if he could find a friend to tend his farm
plot. And he knew that someone of his mates would take over
his sentry duties if they were only asked–as he would gladly
do if they asked him. Kunta’s next thought hit him so hard it
made him leap right up out of bed: As a man now, he could
take Lamin along, as his father had once taken him. For the
next hour Kunta paced the dirt floor of his hut, his mind
wrestling with the questions raised by this exciting thought.
First of all, would Omoro permit such a trip for Lamin, who
was yet a boy and thus required his father’s approval? It galled
Kunta enough, as a man, to have to ask permission for
anything; but suppose Omoro said no? And how would his
three new friends feel about it if he showed up with his little
brother? Come to think of it, Kunta wondered why he was
pacing the floor, and risking serious embarrassment, just to
do a favor for Lamin. After all, ever since he had returned from
manhood training, Lamin hadn’t even been that close to him
any more. But Kunta knew that this wasn’t something that
either of them wanted. They had really enjoyed each other
before Kunta went away. But now Lamin’s time was taken up
by Suwadu, who was always hanging around his bigger
brother in the same way that Lamin used to hang around
Kunta, full of pride and admiration. But Kunta felt that Lamin
had never quit feeling that way about him. If anything, he felt
(hat Lamin admired his big brother even more than before. It
was just that some kind of distance had come between them
because of his having become a man. Men simply spent no
great deal of time with boys; and even if that wasn’t as he and
Lamin wanted it, there just seemed no way for either of them
to crack through it–until Kunta thought of taking Lamin along
on his gold-hunting trip. “Lamin is a good boy. He displays his
home training well. And he takes good care of my goats,” was
Kunta’s opening comment to Omoro, for Kunta knew that men
Umost never began conversations directly with what they
neant to discuss. Omoro, of course, knew this, too. He lodded
slowly and replied: “Yes, I would say that is true.” \s calmly as
he could, Kunta then told his father of meet- ng his three new
friends and of their invitation to join hem in hunting for gold.
Taking a deep breath, Kunta said finally, “I’ve been thinking
that Lamin might enjoy he trip.” Omoro’s face showed not a
flicker of expression. A long noment passed before he spoke.
“For a boy to travel is; ood,” he said–and Kunta knew that his
father was at east not going to say no absolutely. In some way,
Kunta; ould feel his father’s trust in him, but also his concern,
which he knew Omoro didn’t want to express any more
strongly than he had to. “It has been rains since I’ve had my
travel in that area. I seem not to remember that trail’s oute very
well,” said Omoro, as casually as if they were nerely
discussing the weather. Kunta knew that his father–whom
Kunta had never known to forget anything–was trying to find
out if he knew the route to the gold-hunting place. Dropping
onto his knees in the dust, Kunta drew the trail with a stick as
if he had known it for years. He drew; ircles to show the
villages that were both near the trail and at some distance
from it along the way. Omoro got town onto his knees as well,
and when Kunta had finished ira wing the trail, said, “I would
go so as to pass close by the most villages. It will take a little
longer, but it will be the safest.” Kunta nodded, hoping that he
appeared more confident than he suddenly felt. The thought hit
him that though the three friends he had met, traveling
together, could catch each other’s mistakes–if they made any-
-he, traveling with a younger brother for whom he would be
responsible, would have no one to help if something went
wrong. Then Kunta saw Omoro’s finger circling the last third of
the trail. “In this area, few speak Mandinka,” Omoro said.
Kunta remembered the lessons of his manhood training and
looked into his father’s eyes. “The sun and the stars will tell me
the way,” he said. A long moment passed, and then Omoro
spoke again. “I think I’ll go by your mother’s house.” Kunta’s
heart leaped. He knew it was his father’s way of saying that
his permission was given, and he felt it best that he personally
make his decision known to Binta. Omoro wasn’t long in
Binta’s hut. He had hardly left’ to return to his own when she
burst out her door, hands pressed tightly to her shaking head.
“Madi! Suwadu!” she shrieked, and they came rushing to her
from among the other children. Now other mothers came from
their huts, and unmarried girls, all rushing behind Binta as she
began hollering and pulling the two boys alongside her toward
the well. Once there, all of the women crowded about her as
she wept and moaned that now she had only two children left,
that her others certainly would soon be lost to toubob. A
second-kafo girl, unable to contain the news of Kunta’s trip
with Lamin, raced all the way out to where the boys of her kafo
were grazing the goats. A short time later, back in the village,
heads jerked around with smiles on their faces as a deliriously
joyful boy came whooping into the village in a manner fit to
wake the ancestors. Catching up with his mother just outside
her hut, Lamin–though still a hand’s span shorter than she–
bear hugged Binta, planted big kisses on her forehead and
swept her whirling up off her feet as she shouted to be put
down. Once back on the ground, she ran to pick up a nearby
piece of wood and struck Lamin with it. She would have done
it again, but he dashed away–feeling no pain–toward Kunta’s
hut. He didn’t even knock as he burst inside. It was an
unthinkable intrusion into a man’s house–but after a glimpse
at his brother’s face, Kunta had to overlook it. Lamin just stood
there, looking up into the face of his big brother. The boy’s
mouth was trying to say something; indeed, his whole body
was trembling, and Kunta had to catch himself to keep from
grabbing and hugging Lamin in the rush of love he felt passing
between them in that moment. Kunta heard himself speaking,
his tone almost gruff. “I see you’ve already heard. We’ll leave
tomorrow after first prayer.” Man or not, Kunta took care to
walk nowhere near Binta as he made several quick calls to
see friends about caring for his farm and filling in for him on
sentry duty. Kunta could tell where Binta was from the sound of
her wailing as she marched around the village holding Madi
and Suwadu by the hand. “These two only I have left!” she
cried, as loudly as she could. But like everyone else in Juffure,
she knew that no matter what she felt or said or did, Omoro
had spoken.
CHAPTER 30
At the travelers’ tree, Kunta prayed for their journey to be a
safe one. So that it would be a prosperous one as well, he
tied the chicken he had brought along to a lower branch by
one of its legs, leaving it flapping and squawking there as he
and Lamin set forth on the trail. Though he didn’t turn back to
look, Kunta knew Lamin was trying very hard to keep pace
with him, and to keep his head- load balanced–and to keep
Kunta from noticing either. After an hour, the trail took them by
a low, spreading tree strung thickly with beads. Kunta wanted
to explain to Lamin how such a tree meant that living nearby
were some of the few Mandinkas who were kafirs, pagan
unbelievers who used snuff and smoked tobacco in pipes
made of wood with earthen bowls, and also drank a beer they
made of mead. But more important than that knowledge was
for Lamin to learn the discipline of silent marching. By
noontime, Kunta knew that Lamin’s feet and legs would be
hurting him badly, and also his neck under the heavy head
load But it was only by keeping on despite pain that a boy
could toughen his body and his spirit. At the same time, Kunta
knew that Lamin must stop for rest before he collapsed, which
would hurt his pride. Taking the bypass trail to miss the first
village they passed, they soon shook off the naked little firstkafo
children who raced out to inspect them. Kunta still didn’t
look back, but he knew that Lamin would have quickened his
pace and straightened his back for the children’s benefit. But
as they left the children and the village behind, Kunta’s mind
drifted off Lamin to other things. He thought again of the drum
he was going to make for himself–making it first in his mind,
as the men did who carved out masks and figures. For the
drum’s head, he had a young goat’s skin already scraped and
curing in his hut, and he knew just the place–only a short trot
beyond the women’s rice fields–where he could find the tough
wood he needed for a strong drum frame Kunta could almost
hear how his drum was going to sound. As the trail took them
into a grove of trees close by the path, Kunta tightened his
grip on the spear he carried, as he had been taught to do.
Cautiously, he continued walking–then stopped and listened
very quietly. Lamia stood wide-eyed behind him, afraid to
breathe. A moment later, however, his big brother relaxed and
began walking again, toward what Kunta recognized–with
relief–as the sound of several men singing a working song.
Soon he and Lamia came into a clearing and saw twelve men
dragging a dugout canoe with ropes. They had felled a tree
and burned and chopped it out, and now they were starting to
move it the long way to the river. After each haul on the ropes,
they sang the next line of the song, each one ending “All forest
rather than near the riverbank: They were from the dugout
about another arm’s length. Waving to the men, who waved
back, Kunta passed them and made a mental note to tell
Lamin later who these men were and why they had made the
canoe from a tree that grew here in the forest rather than near
the riverbank: They were from the village of Kerewan, where
they made the best Mandinka dugouts; and they knew that
only forest trees would float. Kunta thought with a rush of
warmth about the three young men from Barra whom they
were traveling to meet. It was strange that though they never
had seen each other before, they seemed as brothers.
Perhaps it was because they too were Mandinkas. They said
things differently than he did, but they weren’t different inside.
Like them, he had decided to leave his village to seek his
fortune–and a little excitement–before returning to home
ahead of the next big rains. When the time neared for the
alansaro prayer in mid- afternoon, Kunta stepped off the trail
where a small stream ran among trees. Not looking at Lamin,
he slipped off his head load flexed himself, and bent to scoop
up handfuls of water in order to splash his face. He drank
sparingly, then in the midst of his prayer, he heard Lamin’s
head load thud to the earth. Springing up at the end of the
prayer intending to rebuke him, he saw how painfully his
brother was crawling toward the water. But Kunta still made
his voice hard: “Sip a little at a time!” As Lamin drank, Kunta
decided that an hour’s resting here would be long enough.
After eating a few bites of food, he thought, Lamin should be
able to keep walking until time for the fitiro prayer, at about
dusk, when a fuller meal and a night’s rest would be welcomed
by them both. But Lamin was too tired even to eat. He lay
where he had drunk from the stream, face down with his arms
flung out, palms up. Kunta stepped over quietly to look at the
soles of his feet; they weren’t bleeding yet. Then Kunta himself
catnapped, and when he got up he took from his head load
enough dried meat for two. Shaking Lamin awake, he gave
him his meat and ate his own. Soon they were back on the
trail, which made all the turns and passed all the landmarks
the young men from Barra had drawn for Kunta. Near one
village, they saw two old grandmothers and two young girls
with some first-kafo children busily catching crabs, darting
their bands into a little stream and snatching out their prey.
Near dusk, as Lamin began to grab more and more often at
his head load Kunta saw ahead a flock of large bush fowl
circling down to land. Abruptly he stopped, concealing himself,
as Lamin sank onto his knees behind a bush nearby. Kunta
pursed his lips, making the male bushfowl mating call, and
shortly several fat, fine hens came flapping and waddling over.
They were cocking their heads and looking around when
Kunta’s arrow went straight through one. Jerking its head off,
he let the blood drain out, and while the bird roasted he built a
rough bush shelter, then prayed. He also roasted some ears
of wild corn that he had plucked along the way before
awakening Lamin, who had fallen asleep again the moment
they put their head loads down. Hardly had Lamin wolfed
down his meal before he flopped back down onto the soft
moss under a slanting roof of leafy boughs and went back to
sleep without a murmur. Kunta sat hugging his knees in the
night’s still air. Not far away, hyenas began yipping. For some
time, he diverted himself by identifying the other sounds of the
forest. Then three times he faintly heard a melodious horn. He
knew it was the next village’s final prayer call, blown by their
alimamo through a hollowed elephant’s tooth. He wished that
Lamin had been awake to hear its haunting cry, which was
almost like a human voice, but then he smiled, for his brother
was beyond caring what anything sounded like. Then himself
praying, Kunta also slept. Soon after sunrise, they were
passing that village and hearing the drumming rhythm of the
women’s pestles pounding couscous for breakfast porridge.
Kunta could almost taste it; but they didn’t stop. Not far
beyond, down the trail, was another village, and as they went
by, the men were leaving their mosque and the women were
bustling around their cooking fires. Still farther on, Kunta saw
ahead of them an old man sitting beside the trail. He was bent
nearly double over a number of cowrie shells, which he was
shuffling and reshuffling on a plaited bamboo mat while
mumbling to himself. Not to interrupt him, Kunta was about to
pass by when the old man looked up and hailed them over to
where he sat. “I come from the village of Kootacunda, which is
in the kingdom of Wooli, where the sun rises over the Simbani
forest,” he said in a high, cracking voice. “And where may you
be from?” Kunta told him the village of Juffure, and the old
man nodded. “I have heard of it.” He was consulting his
cowries, he said, to learn their next message about his
journey to the city of Timbuktu, “which I want to see before I
die,” and he wondered if the travelers would care to be of any
help to him. “We are poor, but happy to share whatever we
have with you. Grandfather,” said Kunta, easing off his head
load reaching within it and withdrawing some dried meat,
which he gave the old man, who thanked him and put the food
in his lap.
Peering at them both, he asked,
“You are brothers traveling?” “We are. Grandfather,” Kunta
replied. “That is good!” the old man said, and picked up two
of his cowries. “Add this to those on your hunting bag, and it
will bring you a fine profit,” he said to Kunta, handing him one
of the cowries. “And you, young man,” he said to Lamin,
giving him the other, “keep this for when you become a man
with a bag of your own.” They both thanked him, and he
wished them Allah’s blessings. They had walked on for quite a
while when Kunta iecided that the time was ripe to break his
silence with Lamin. Without stopping or turning, he began to
speak: There is a legend, little brother, that it was traveling
Mandinkas who named the place where that old man is?
ound. They found there a kind of insect they had never seen
before and named the place Tumbo Kutu,” which neans ‘new
insect.” ” When there was no response from Lamin, Kunta
turned his head; Lamin was well behind,:>ent down over his
head load–which had fallen open on he ground–and
struggling to tie it back together. As ECunta trotted back, he
realized that Lamin’s grabbing at lis bead load had finally
caused it to work its bindings loose and that he had somehow
eased it off his head without making any noise, not wanting to
break the rule of Hence by asking Kunta to stop. While Kunta
was retying he head load he saw that Lamin’s feet were
bleeding; but his was to be expected, so he said nothing of it.
The tears ihone in Lamin’s eyes as he got the load back on
his head, nd they went on. Kunta upbraided himself that he
hadn’t missed Lamin’s presence and might have left him
behind. They hadn’t walked much farther when Lamin let out a;
hoked scream. Thinking he had stepped on a thorn, Kunta
turned–and saw his brother staring upward at a lig panther
flattened on the limb they would have walked inder in another
moment. The panther went sssss, then seemed to flow almost
lazily into the branches of a tree nd was gone from sight.
Shaken, Kunta resumed walking, ilanned and angry and
embarrassed at himself. Why had ie not seen that panther?
The odds were that it was only wishing to remain unseen and
wouldn’t have sprung down Jpon them, for unless the big cats
were extremely hungry, they rarely attacked even their animal
prey during the day- ight, and humans seldom at any time,
unless they were; ornered, provoked, or wounded. Still, a
picture flashed through Kunta’s memory of the panthermangled
nanny oat from his goat-herding days. He could
almost hear the kin tango stem warning: “The hunter’s senses
must be fine. He must hear what others cannot, smell what
others cannot. He must see through the darkness. ” But while
he had been walking along with his own thoughts wandering, it
was Lamin who had seen the panther. Most of his bad
troubles had come from that habit, which he absolutely must
correct, he thought. Bending quickly without breaking pace,
Kunta picked up a small stone, spit on it three times, and
hurled it far back down the trail, the stone having thus carried
behind them the spirits of misfortune. They walked on with the
sun burning down upon them as the country gradually changed
from green forest to oil palms and muddy, dozing creeks,
taking them past hot, dusty villages where–just as in Juffure–
first-kafo children ran and screamed around in packs, where
men lounged under the baobab and women gossiped beside
the well. But Kunta wondered why they let their goats wander
around these villages, along with the dogs and chickens,
rather than keep them either out grazing or penned up, as in
Juffure. He decided that they must be an odd, different kind of
people. They pushed on over grass less sandy soil sprinkled
with the burst dry fruit of weirdly shaped baobab. When the
time came to pray, they rested and ate lightly, and Kunta would
check Lamin’s head bundle and his feet, whose bleeding was
not so bad any more. And the crossroads kept unfolding like a
picture, until finally there was the huge old shell of a baobab
that the young men from Barra had described. It must have
been hundreds of rains old to be dying at last, he thought, and
he told Lamin what one of the young men had told him: “A
griot rests inside there,” adding from his own knowledge that
griots were always buried not as other people were but within
the shells of ancient baobabs, since both the trees and the
histories in the heads of griots were timeless. “We’re close
now,” Kunta said, and he wished he had the drum he was
going to make, so that he could signal ahead to his friends.
With the sinking of the sun, they finally reached the clay pits–
and there were the three young men. “We felt you would
come!” they shouted, happy to see him. They merely ignored
Lamin as if he were their own second-kafo brother. Amid brisk
talk, the three young men proudly showed the tiny grains of
gold they had collected. By the next morning’s first light, Kunta
and Lamin had joined in, chopping up chunks of sticky clay,
which they dropped into. large calabashes of water. After
whirling the calabash, then slowly pouring off most of the
muddy water, they carefully felt with their fingers to see if any
gold grains had sunk to the bottom. Now and then there was a
grain as tiny as a millet seed, or maybe a little larger. They
worked so feverishly that there was no time for talk. Lamin
seemed even to forget his aching muscles in the search for
gold. And each precious grain went carefully into the hollow of
the largest quills from bush pigeons’ wings, stoppered with a
bit of cotton. Kunta and Lamin had six quills full when the three
young men said they’d collected enough. Now, they said,
they’d like to go farther up the trail, deeper into the interior of
the country, to hunt elephants’ teeth. They said they had been
told where old elephants sometimes broke off their teeth in
trying to uproot small trees and thick bush while feeding. They
had heard also that if one could ever find the secret
graveyards of the elephants, a fortune in teeth would be there.
Would Kunta join them? He was sorely tempted; this sounded
even more exciting than hunting for gold. But he couldn’t go–
not with Lamin. Sadly he thanked them for the invitation and
said he must return home with his brother. So warm farewells
were exchanged, but not before Kunta had made the young
men accept his invitation to stop for hospitality in Juffure on
their way home to Barra. The trip back seemed shorter to
Kunta. Lamin’s feet bled worse, but he walked faster when
Kunta handed him the quills to carry, saying, “Your mother
should enjoy these.” Lamin’s happiness was no greater than
his own at having taken his brother traveling, just as their
father had done for him–just as Lamin would one day take
Suwadu, and Suwadu would take Madi. They were
approaching Juffure’s travelers’ tree when Kunta heard
Lamin’s head- load fall off again. Kunta whirled angrily, but
then he saw his brother’s pleading expression. “All right, get it
later!” he snapped. Without a word, his aching muscles and
his bleeding feet forgotten, Lamin bolted past Kunta for the
village, his thin legs racing faster than they’d ever taken him.
By th& time Kunta entered the village gate, excited women
and children were clustered around Binta, who was sticking
the six quills of gold into her hair, clearly bursting with relief
and happiness. A moment later, Binta’s and Kunta’s faces
exchanged a look of tenderness and warmth far beyond the
usual greetings that passed between mother and her grownup
son home from traveling. The women’s clacking tongues
soon let everyone in Juffure know what the two oldest Kinte
sons had brought home with them. “There’s a cow on Binta’s
head!” shouted an old grand- mother–there was enough gold
in the quills to buy a cow–and the rest of the women took up
that cry. “You did well,” said Omoro simply when Kunta met
him. But the feeling they shared without further words was
even greater than with Binta. In the days that followed, elders
seeing Kunta around the village began to speak to him and
smile in a special way, and he solemnly replied with his
respects. Even Suwadu’s little second-kafo mates greeted
Kunta as a grown-up, saying “Peace!” and then Standing with
palms folded over their chests until he passed by. Kunta even
chanced to overhear Binta one day gossiping about “the two
men I feed,” and he was filled with pride that his mother had
finally realized he was a man. It was all right with Kunta now
not only for Binta to feed him, but even to do such things as
searching on Kunta’s head for ticks, as she had been
resenting not doing. And Kunta felt it all right now also to visit
her hut again now and then. As for Binta, she bustled about all
smiles, even humming to herself as she cooked. In an offhand
manner, Kunta would ask if she needed him to do anything;
she would say so if she did, and he did whatever it was as
soon as he could. If he but glanced at Lamin or Suwadu, when
they were playing too loudly, for example, they were instantly
still and quiet. And Kunta liked tossing Madi into the air,
catching him as he fell, and Madi liked it even more. As for
Lamin, he clearly regarded his man-brother as ranking
second only to Allah. He cared for Kunta’s seven goats–which
were multiplying well–as if they were goats of gold, and he
eagerly helped Kunta to raise his small farm plot of couscous
and ground nuts Whenever Binta needed to get some work
done around the hut, Kunta would’ take all three children off
her hands, and she would stand smiling in her doorway as he
marched off with Madi on his shoulder, Lamin following–
strutting like a rooster–and Suwadu jealously tagging along
behind. It was nice, thought Kunta–so nice that he caught
himself wishing that he might have a family of his own like this
someday. But not until the time comes, of course, he told
himself; and that’s a long way off.
CHAPTER 31
As new men were permitted to do whenever there was no
conflict with their duties, Kunta and others of his kafo would sit
at the outermost edges of the formal sessions of the Council
of Elders, which were held once each moon under Juffure’s
ancient baobab. Sitting beneath it on cured hides very close
together, the six senior elders seemed almost as old as the
tree, Kunta thought, and to have been carved from the same
wood, except that they were as black as ebony against the
white of their long robes and round skullcaps. Seated facing
them were those with troubles or disputes to be resolved.
Behind the petitioners, in rows, according to their ages, sat
junior elders such as Omoro, and behind them sat the new
men of Kunta’s kafo. And behind them the village women
could sit, though they rarely attended except when someone in
their immediate family was involved in a matter to be heard.
Once in a long while, all the women would be present–but only
if a case held the promise of some juicy gossip. No women at
all attended when the Council met to discuss purely
administrative affairs, such as Juffure’s relationship with other
villages. On the day for matters of the people, however, the
audience was large and noisy–but all settled quickly into
silence when the most senior of the elders raised his stick,
sewn with bright-colored beads, to strike out on the talking
drum before him the name of the first person to be heard. This
was done according to their ages, to serve the needs of the
oldest first. Whoever it was would stand, stating his case, the
senior elders all staring at the ground, listening until he
finished and sat down. At this point, any of the elders might
ask him questions. If the matter involved a dispute, the second
person now presented his side, followed by more questions,
whereupon the elders turned around to present their backs as
they huddled to discuss the matter, which could take a long
time. One or more might turn with further questions. But all
finally turned back around toward the front, one motioning the
person or persons being heard to stand again, and the senior
elder then spoke their decision, after which the next name was
drum talked Even for new men like Kunta, most of these
hearings were routine matters. People with babies recently
born asked for a bigger farm plot for the husband and an
additional rice plot for the wife–requests that were almost
always quickly granted, as were the first farming-land requests
of unmarried men like Kunta and his mates. During mantraining,
the kin tango had directed them never to miss any
Council of Elders sessions unless they had to, as the
witnessing of its decisions would broaden a man’s knowledge
as his own rains increased until he too would be a senior
elder. Attending his first session, Kunta had looked at Omoro
seated ahead of him, wondering how many hundreds of
decisions his father must have in his head, though he wasn’t
even a senior elder yet. At his first session, Kunta witnessed a
land matter involving a dispute. Two men both claimed the fruit
of some trees originally planted by the first man on land to
which the second man now had the farming rights, since the
first man’s family had decreased. The Council of Elders
awarded the fruit to the first man, saying, “If he hadn’t planted
the trees, that fruit wouldn’t be there.” At later sessions, Kunta
saw people frequently charged with breaking or losing
something borrowed from an irate lender who claimed that the
articles had been both valuable and brand-new. Unless the
borrower had witnesses to disprove that, he was usually
ordered to pay for or replace the article at the value of a new
one. Kunta also saw furious people accusing others of
inflicting bad fortune on them through evil magic. One man
testified that another had touched him with a cock’s spur,
making him violently ill. A young wife declared that her new
mother-in-law had hidden some bourein shrub in the wife’s
kitchen, causing whatever was cooked there to turn out badly.
And a widow claimed that an old man whose advances she
had spurned had sprinkled powdered eggshells in her path,
making her walk into a long succession of troubles, which she
proceeded to describe. If presented, with enough impressive
evidence of evil magic’s motives and results, the Council
would command immediate corrective magic to be done by
the nearest traveling magic man, whom a drum talk message
would summon to Juffure at the expense of the evildoer. Kunta
saw debtors ordered to pay up, even if they had to sell their
possessions; or with nothing to sell, to work off the amount as
the lender’s slave. He saw slaves charging their masters with
cruelty, or with providing unsuitable food or lodgings, or with
taking more than their half share of what the slaves’ work had
produced. Masters, in turn, accused slaves of cheating by
hiding some of their produce, or of insufficient work, or of
deliberately breaking farm tools. Kunta saw the Council weigh
carefully the evidence in these cases, along with each
person’s past record in the village, and it was not uncommon
for some slaves’ reputations to be better than their masters’!
But sometimes there was no dispute between a master and
his slave. Indeed, Kunta saw them coming together asking
permission for the slave to marry into the master’s family. But
any couple intending to marry first had to obtain the Council’s
permission. Couples judged by the Council to be too close of
kinship were refused out of hand, but for those not thus
disqualified, there was a waiting period of one moon between
the request and the reply, during which the villagers were
expected to pay quiet visits to any senior elder and reveal any
private information, either good or bad, about the couple in
question. Since childhood, had each of them always
demonstrated a good home training? Had either of them ever
caused undue trouble to anyone, including their own families?
Had either of them ever displayed any undesirable tendencies
of any kind, such as cheating or telling less than the full truth?
Was the girl known for being irritable and argumentative? Was
the man known for beating goats’ unmercifully If so, the
marriage was refused, for it was believed that such a person
might pass these traits along to his or her children. But as
Kunta knew even before he began attending the Council
sessions, most couples won approval for marriage, because
both sets of parents involved had already learned the answers
to these questions, and found them satisfactory, before
granting their own permission. At the Council sessions,
however, Kunta learned that sometimes parents hadn’t been
told things that people did tell the senior elders. Kunta saw
one marriage permission flatly refused when a witness came
forth to testify that the young man of the planned marriage, as
a young goatherd, had once stolen a basket from him, thinking
he hadn’t been seen. The crime hadn’t been reported then, out
of compassion for the fact that he was still a boy; if it had been
reported, the law would have dictated that his right hand be
cut off. Kunta sat riveted as the young thief, exposed at last,
burst into tears, blurting out his guilt before his horrified
parents and the girl he was asking to marry, who began
screaming. Soon afterward, he disappeared from Juffure and
was never seen or heard of again. After attending Council
sessions for a number of moons, Kunta guessed that most
problems for the senior elders came from married people–
especially from men with two, three, or four wives. Adultery
was the most frequent charge by such men, and unpleasant
things happened to an offending man if a husband’s
accusation was backed up with convincing outside testimony
or other strong evidence. If a wronged husband was poor and
the offending man well off, the Council might order the
offender to deliver his possessions to the husband, one at a
time, until the husband said “I have enough,” which might not
be until the adulterer had only his bare hut left. But with both
men poor, which was usually the case, the Council might order
the offender to work as the husband’s slave for a period of
time considered worth the wrongful use of his wife. And Kunta
flinched for one repeated offender when the elders set a date
and time for him to receive a public flogging of thirty-nine
lashes across his bare back by his most recently wronged
husband, according to the ancient Moslem rule of “forty, save
one.” Kunta’s own thoughts about getting married cooled
somewhat as he watched and listened to (he angry testimony
of injured wives and husbands before the Council. Men
charged that their wives failed to respect them, were unduly
lazy, were unwilling to make love when their turn came, or
were just generally impossible to live with. Unless an accused
wife presented a strong counter argument with some
witnesses to bear her out, the senior elders usually told the
husband to go that day and set any three possessions of his
wife’s outside her hut and then utter toward those
possessions, three times, with witnesses present, the words,
“I divorce you! ” A wife’s most serious charge–certain to bring
out every woman in the village if it was suspected in advance–
was to claim that her husband was not a man, meaning that he
was inadequate with her in bed. The elders would appoint
three old persons, one from the family of the defiant wife,
another from the family of the husband, and the third from
among the elders themselves. A date and time would be set
for them to observe the wife and husband together in his bed.
If two of the three voted that the wife was right, she won her
divorce, and her family kept the dowry goats; but if two
observers voted that the husband performed well, he not only
got the goats back but also could beat the wife and divorce
her if he wished to. In the rains since Kunta had returned from
manhood training, no case that had been considered by the
Council filled him and his mates with as much anticipation as
the one that began with gossip and whispering about two
older members of their own kafo and a pair of Juffure’s most
eligible widows. On the day the matter finally came before the
Council, nearly everyone in the village gathered early to
assure themselves of the best possible seats. A number of
routine old people’s problems were settled first, and then
came the case of Dembo Dabo and Kadi Tamba, who had
been granted a divorce more than a rain before but now were
back before the Council grinning widely and holding hands
and asking permission to remarry. They stopped grinning
when the senior elder told them sternly: “You insisted on
divorce; therefore you may not remarry–until each of you has
had another wife and husband in between.” The gasps from
those in the rear were hushed by the drum talk announcement
of the next names to be called: “Tuda Tamba and Kalilu
Conteh! Parrta Bedeng and Sefo Kela!” The two members of
Kunta’s kafo and the two widows stood up. The taller widow,
Fanta Bedeng, spoke for all of them, sounding as if she had
carefully practiced what to say; but nervousness still gripped
her. “Tuda Tamba with her thirty-two rains and I with my thirtythree
have small chance of catching more husbands,” she
said, and proceeded to ask the Council to approve of teriya
friendships for her and Tuda Tamba to cook for and sleep with
Sefo Kela and Kalilu Conteh, respectively. Different elders
asked a few questions of all four–the widows responding
confidently, Kunta’s friends uncertainly, in sharp contrast to
their usual boldness of manner. And then the elders turned
around, murmuring among themselves. The audience was so
tense and quiet that a dropped groundnut could have been
heard as the elders finally turned back around. The senior
elder spoke: “Allah would approve! You widows will have a
man to use, and you new men will get valuable experience for
when you marry later.” The senior elder rapped his stick twice
hard against the edge of the talking drum and glared at the
buzzing women in the rear. Only when they fell silent was the
next name called: “Jankeh Jallon!” Having but fifteen rains,
she was thus the last to be heard. All of Juffure had danced
and feasted when she found her way home after escaping
from some toubob who had kidnaped her. Then, a few moons
later, she became big with child, although unmarried, which
caused much gossip. Young and strong, she might still have
found some old man’s acceptance as a third or fourth junior
wife. But then the child was born: He was a strange pale tan
color like a cured hide, and had very odd hair–and wherever
Jankeh Jallon would appear thereafter, people would look at
the ground and hurry elsewhere. Her eyes glistening with
tears, she stood up now and asked the Council: What was
she to do? The elders didn’t turn around to confer; the senior
elder said they would have to weigh the matter–which was a
most serious and difficult one–until the next moon’s Council
meeting. And with that, he and the five other elders rose and
left. Troubled, and somehow unsatisfied, by the way the
session had ended, Kunta remained seated for a few
moments after most of his mates and the rest of the audience
had gotten up–chattering among themselves–and headed
back toward their huts. His head was still full of thoughts when
Binta brought his evening meal, and he said not a word to her
as he ate, nor she to him. Later, as he picked up his spear
and his bow and arrow and ran with his wuolo dog to his
sentry post–for this was his night to stand guard outside the
village–Kunta was still thinking: about the tan baby with the
strange hair, about his no doubt even stranger father, and
about whether (his toubob would have eaten Jankeh Jallon if
she had not escaped from him.
CHAPTER 32
In the moonlit expanse of ripening fields of ground nuts Kunta
climbed the notched pole and sat down cross legged on the
lookout platform that was built into its sturdy fork, high above
the ground. Placing his weapons beside him–along with’ the
ax with which he planned the next morning, at last, to chop the
wood for his drum frame–he watched as his wuolo dog went
trotting and sniffing this way and that in the fields below.
During Kunta’s first few moons on sentry duty, rains ago, he
remembered snatching at his spear if so much as a rat went
rustling through the grass. Every shadow seemed a monkey,
every monkey a panther, and every panther a toubob, until his
eyes and ears became seasoned to his task. In time, he found
he could tell the difference between the snarl of a lion and that
of a leopard. It took longer, however, for him to learn how to
remain vigilant through these long nights. When his thoughts
began to turn inward, as they always did, he often forgot
where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. But
finally he learned to keep alert with half of his mind and yet still
explore his private thoughts with the other. Tonight, he was
thinking about the teriya friendships that had been approved
for his two friends by the Council of Elders. For several
moons, they had been telling Kunta and his mates that they
were going to take their case before the Council, but no one
had really believed them. And now it was done. Perhaps at
this very moment, he thought, they might be performing the
teriya act in bed with their two widows. Kunta suddenly sat
upright trying to picture what it must be like. It was chiefly from
his kafo’s gossip that Kunta knew what little he did about
under women’s clothes. In marriage negotiations, he knew,
girls’ fathers had to guarantee them as virgins to get the best
bride price. And a lot of bloodiness was connected with
women, he knew that. Every moon they had blood; and
whenever they had babies; and the night when they got
married. Everyone knew how the next morning, the
newlyweds’ two mothers went to the hut to put into a woven
basket the white pagne cloth the couple had slept on, taking
its bloodiness as proof of the girl’s virginity to the alimamo,
who only then walked around the village drum talking Allah’s
blessings on that marriage. If that white cloth wasn’t bloodied,
Kunta knew, the new husband would angrily leave the hut with
the two mothers as his witnesses and shout loudly, “I divorce
you!” three times for all to hear. But teriya involved none of
that–only new men sleeping with a willing widow and eating
her cooking. Kunta thought for a little while about how Jinna
MTtaki had looked at him, making no secret of her designs,
amid the previous day’s jostling crowd as the Council session
ended. Almost without realizing, he squeezed his hard foto,
but he forced back the strong urge to stroke it because that
would seem as if, he was giving in to what that widow wanted,
which was embarrassing even to think about. He didn’t really
want the stickiness with her, he told himself; but now that he
was a man, he had every right, if he pleased, to think about
teriya, which the senior elders themselves had shown was
nothing for a man to be ashamed of. Kunta’s mind returned to
the memory of some girls he and Lamin had passed in one
village when returning from their gold-hunting trip. There had
been about ten of them, he guessed, all beautifully black, in
tight dresses, colorful beads, and bracelets, with high breasts
and little hair plaits sticking up. They had acted so strangely
as he went by that it had taken Kunta a moment to realize that
the show they made of looking away whenever he looked at
them meant that they weren’t interested in him but that they
wanted lim to be interested in them. Females were so
confusing, he thought. Girls of their ige in Juffure never paid
enough attention to him even to look away. Was it because
they knew what he was really ike? Or was it because they
knew he was far younger than ie looked–too young to be
worthy of their interest? Probibiy the girls in that village
believed no traveling man lead- ng a boy could have less than
twenty or twenty-five rains, et alone his seventeen. They would
have scoffed if they had mown. Yet he was being sought after
by a widow who cnew very well how young he was. Perhaps
he was lucky lot to be older, Kunta thought. If he was, the girls
of luffure would be carrying on over him the way the girls of hat
village had, and he knew they all had just one thing on heir
minds: marriage. At least Jinna M’Baki was too old; o be
looking for anything more than a teriya friendship. Miy would a
man want to marry when he could get a woman to cook for
him and sleep with him without getting named? There must be
some reason. Perhaps it was be-; ause it was only through
marrying that a man could have long. That was a good thing.
But what would he have to each those sons until he had lived
long enough to learn omething about the world–not just from
his father, and Torn the arafang, and from the kin tango but
also by ex- iloring it for himself, as his uncles had done? His
uncles weren’t married even yet, though they were rfder than
his father, and most men of their rains had aleady taken
second wives by now. Was Omoro considering aking a
second wife? Kunta was so startled at the thought hat he sat
up straight. And how would his mother feel about it? Well, at
least Binta, as the senior wife, would be able to tell the second
wife her duties, and make certain she worked hard and set
her sleeping turns with Omoro. Would there be trouble
between the two women? No, he was sure Binta wouldn’t be
like the kin tango senior wife, vhom it was commonly known
shouted so much abuse at us junior wives, keeping them in
such a turmoil, that he arely got any peace. Kunta shifted the
position of his legs to let them hang ‘or a while over the edge
of his small perch, to keep the nuscles from cramping. His
wuolo dog was curled on the ground below him, its smooth
brown fur shining in the moonlight, but he knew that the dog
only seemed to be dozing, and that his nose and ears were
alertly twitching for the night air’s slightest smell or sound of
warning to bound up racing and barking after the baboons that
had lately been raiding the groundnut fields almost every night.
During each long lookout duty, few things pleased Kunta more
than when, maybe a dozen times in the course of a night, he
would be jerked from his thoughts by sudden distant snarlings
as a baboon was sprung upon in the brush by a big catespecially
if the baboon’s growling turned into a scream
quickly hushed, which meant that it had not escaped. But it all
was quiet now as Kunta sat on the edge of his platform and
looked out across the fields. The only sign of life, in fact,
beyond the tall grass, was the bobbing yellow light of a Fulani
herdsman in the distance as he waved his grass torch to
frighten away some animal, probably a hyena, that was
roaming too close to his cows. So good were the Fulani at
tending cattle that people claimed they could actually talk with
their animals. And Omoro had told Kunta that each day, as
part of their pay for herding, the Fulani would siphon a little
blood from the cows’ necks, which they mixed with milk and
drank. What a strange people, thought Kunta. Yet though they
were not Man- dinka, they were from The Gambia, like him.
How much stranger must be the people–and the customs–
one would find beyond the borders of his land. Within a moon
after he returned from gold hunting with Lamin, Kunta had
been restless to get on the road once again–this time for a
real trip. Other young men of his kafo, he knew, were planning
to travel somewhere as soon as the ground nuts and
couscous got harvested, but none was going to venture far.
Kunta, however, meant to put his eyes and feet upon that
distant place called Mali, where, some three or four hundred
rains before, according to Omoro and his uncles, the Kinte
clan had begun. These forefather Kintes, he remembered,
had won fame as blacksmiths, men who had conquered fire to
make iron weapons that won wars and iron tools that made
farming less hard. And from this original Kinte family, all of
their descendants and all of the people who worked for them
had taken the Kinte name. And some of that clan had moved
to Mauretania, the birthplace of Kunta’s holy-man grandfather.
So that no one else, even Omoro, would know about his plan
until he wanted it known, Kunta had consulted in the strictest
confidence with the arafang about the best route to Mali.
Drawing a rough map in the dust, then tracing his finger along
it, he had told Kunta that by following the banks of the Kamby
Bolongo about six days in the direction of one’s prayers to
Allah, a traveler would reach Samo Island. Beyond there, the
river narrowed and curved sharply to the left and began a
serpent’s twists and turns, with many confusing belongs
leading off as wide as the river, whose swampy banks couldn’t
be seen in some areas for the thickness of the mangroves
growing sometimes as high as ten men. Where one could see
the riverbanks, the schoolmaster told him, they abounded with
monkeys, hippopotamus, giant crocodiles, and herds of as
many as five hundred baboons. But two to three days of that
difficult traveling should bring Kunta to a second large island,
where the low, muddy banks would rise into small cliffs matted
with shrubs and small trees. The trail, which twisted alongside
the river, would take him past villages of Bansang, Karantaba,
and Diabugu. Soon afterward he would cross the eastern
border of The Gambia and enter the Kingdom of Fulladu, and
a half day’s walking from there, he would arrive at the village of
Fatoto. Out of his bag, Kunta took the scrap of cured hide the
arafang had given him. On it was the name of a colleague in
Fatoto who he said would give Kunta directions for the next
twelve to fourteen days, which would take him across a land
called Senegal. Beyond that, said the arafang, lay Mali and
Kunta’s destination, Ka-ba, that land’s main place. To go there
and return, the arafang figured, would take about a moon–not
counting whatever time Kunta chose to spend in Mali. So
many times had Kunta drawn and studied the route on his
hut’s dirt floor–erasing it before Binta brought his meals–that
he could almost see it before him as he sat on his perch in the
groundnut fields. Thinking about the adventures that awaited
him along that trail–and in Mali–he could hardly contain his
eagerness to be off. He was almost as eager to tell Lamin of
his plans, not only because he wanted to share his secret, but
also because he had decided to take his little brother along.
He knew how much Lamin had boasted about that earlier trip
with his brother. Since then, Lamin had also been through
manhood training and would be a more experienced and
trustworthy traveling companion. But Kunta’s deepest reason
for deciding to take him, he had to admit, was simply that he
wanted company. For a moment, Kunta sat in the dark smiling
to himself, thinking of Lamin’s face when the time would come
for him to know. Kunta planned, of course, to drop the news in
a very offhand way” as if he had just happened to think of it.
But before then he must speak about it with Omoro, whom he
knew now would feel no undue concern. In fact, he was sure
that Omoro would be deeply pleased, and that even Binta,
though she would worry, would be less upset than before.
Kunta wondered what he might bring to Binta from Mali that
she would treasure even more than her quills of gold. Perhaps
some fine molded pots, or a bolt of beautiful cloth; Omoro and
his uncles had said that the ancient Kinte women in Mali had
been famed for the pots they made and for the brilliant
patterns of cloth they wove, so maybe the Kinte women there
still did those things. When he returned from Mali, it occurred
to Kunta, he might plan still another trip for a later rain. He
might even journey to that distant place beyond endless sands
where his uncles had told of the long caravans of strange
animals with water stored in two humps on their backs. Kalilu
Conteh and Sefo Kela could have their old, ugly teriya
widows; he, Kunta Kinte, would make a pilgrimage to Mecca
itself. Happening at that moment to be staring in the direction
of that holy city, Kunta became aware of a tiny, steady yellow
light far across the fields. The Fulani herdsman over there, he
realized, was cooking his breakfast. Kunta hadn’t even
noticed the first faint streaks of dawn in the east. Reaching
down to pick up his weapons and head home, he saw his ax
and remembered the wood for his drum frame. But he was
tired, he thought; maybe he’d chop the wood tomorrow. No, he
was already halfway to the forest, and if he didn’t do it now, he
knew he would probably let it go until his next sentry duty,
which was twelve days later. Besides, it wouldn’t be manly to
give in to his weariness. Moving his legs to test for any
cramps and feeling none, he climbed down the notched pole
to the ground, where us wuolo dog waited, making happy little
barks and waging his tail. After kneeling for his suba prayer,
Kunta got ip, stretched, took a deep breath of the cool
morning air, and set off toward the belong at a lope.
CHAPTER 33
The familiar perfumes of wild flowers filled Kunta’s nostrils is
he ran, wetting his legs, through grass glistening with lew in
the first rays of sunshine. Hawks circled overhead booking for
prey, and the ditches beside the fields were alive with the
croaking of frogs. He veered away from a tree to avoid
disturbing a flock of blackbirds that filled its branches like
shiny black leaves. But he might have saved ilimself the
trouble, for no sooner had he passed by than an ingry, raucous
cawing made him turn his head in time to see hundreds of
crows bullying the blackbirds from their roost. Breathing
deeply as he ran, but still not out of breath, he began to smell
the musky aroma of the mangroves as he aeared the low,
thick underbrush that extended far back from the banks of the
belong. At the first sight of him, a sudden snorting spread
among the wild pigs, which in turn set off a barking and
snarling among the baboons, whose aig males quickly
pushed their females and babies behind ‘hem. When he was
younger, he would have stopped to mitate them, grunting and
jumping up and down, since this lever failed to annoy the
baboons, who would always shake heir fists and sometimes
throw rocks. But he was no longer i boy, and he had learned to
treat all of Allah’s creatures is he himself wished to be treated:
with respect. Fluttering white way–of egrets, cranes, storks,
and pelicans rose from th’ir sleeping places as he picked his
way through the tangled mangrove down to the belong. Junta’s
wuolo dog raced ahead chasing water snakes and big brown
turtles down their mud slides into the water, where they left not
even a ripple. As he always did whenever he felt some need
to come here after a night’s lookout duty, Kunta stood awhile
at the edge of the belong, today watching a gray heron trailing
its long, thin legs as it flew at about a spear’s height above the
pale green water, rippling the surface with each downbeat of
its wings. Though the heron was looking for smaller game, he
knew that this was the best spot along the belong for kujalo, a
big, powerful fish that Kunta loved to catch for Binta, who
would stew it for him with onions, rice, and bitter tomatoes.
With his stomach already rumbling for breakfast, it made him
hungry just to think of it. A little farther downstream, Kunta
turned away from the water’s edge along a path he himself
had made to an ancient mangrove tree that he thought must
know him, after countless visits, as well as he knew it. Pulling
himself up onto the lowest branch, he climbed all the way to
his favorite perch near the top. From here, in the clear
morning, with the sun warm on his back, he could see all the
way to the next bend in the belong, still carpeted with sleeping
waterfowl, and beyond them to the women’s rice plots, dotted
with their bamboo shelters for nursing babies. In which one of
them, he wondered, had his mother put him when he was
little? This place in the early morning would always fill Kunta
with a greater sense of calm, and wonder, than anywhere else
he knew of. Even more than in the village mosque, he felt here
how totally were everyone and everything in the hands of Allah;
and how everything he could see and hear and smell from the
top of this tree had been here for longer than men’s
memories, and would be here long after he and his sons and
his sons’ sons had joined their ancestors. Trotting away from
the belong toward the sun for a little while, Kunta finally
reached the head-high grass surrounding the grove where he
was going to pick out and chop a section of tree trunk just the
right size for the body of his drum. If the green wood started
drying and curing today, he figured it would be ready to hollow
out and work on in a moon and a half, about the time he and
Lamin would be returning from their trip to Mali. As he stepped
into the grove, Kunta saw a sudden movement out of the
corner of his eye. It was a hare, and the wuolo dog was after it
in a flash as it raced for cover in the tall grass. He was
obviously chasing it for sport rather than for food, since he
was barking furiously; Kunta knew that a hunting wuolo never
made noise if he was really hungry. The two of them were
soon out of earshot, but Kunta knew that his dog would come
back when he lost interest in the chase. Kunta headed forward
to the center of the grove, where he would find more trees
from which to choose a trunk of the size, smoothness, and
roundness that he wanted. The soft, mossy earth felt good
under his feet as he walked deeper into the dark grove, but
the air here was damp and cold, he noticed, the sun not being
high enough or hot enough yet to penetrate the thick foliage
overhead. Leaning his weapons and ax against a warped
tree, he wandered here and there, occasionally stooping, his
eyes and fingers examining for just the right trunk, one just a
little bit larger–to allow for drying shrinkage–than he wanted
his drum to be. He was bending over a likely prospect when
he heard the sharp crack of a twig, followed quickly by the
squawk of a parrot overhead. It was probably the dog
returning, he thought in the back of his mind. But no grown dog
ever cracked a twig, he flashed, whirling in the same instant. In
a blur, rushing at him, he saw a white face, a club upraised;
heard heavy footfalls behind him. Toubob! His foot lashed up
and caught the man in the belly–it was soft and he heard a
grunt–just as something hard and heavy grazed the back of
Kunta’s head and landed like a tree trunk on his shoulder.
Sagging under the pain, Kunta spun–turning his back on the
man who lay doubled over on the ground at his feet–and
pounded with his fists on the faces of two black men who were
lunging at him with a big sack, and at another toubob swinging
a short, thick club, which missed him this time as he sprang
aside. His brain screaming for any weapon, Kunta leaped into
them–clawing, butting, kneeing, gouging–hardly feeling the
club that was pounding against his back. As three of them
went down with him, sinking to the ground under their
combined weight, a knee smashed into Kunta’s lower back,
rocking him with such pain that he gasped. His open mouth
meeting flesh, his teeth clamped, cut, tore. His numb fingers
finding a face, he clawed deeply into an eye, hearing its owner
howl as again the heavy club met Kunta’s head. Dazed, he
heard a dog’s snarling, a toubob screaming, then a sudden
piteous yelp. Scrambling to his feet, wildly twisting, dodging,
ducking to escape more clubbing, with blood streaming from
his split head, he saw one black cupping his eye, one of the
toubob holding a bloody arm, standing over the body of the
dog, and the remaining pair circling him with raised clubs.
Screaming his rage, Kunta went -for the second toubob, his
fists meeting and breaking the force of the descending club.
Almost choking with the awful toubob stink, he tried
desperately to wrench away the club. Why had he not heard
them, sensed them, smelted them? Just then the black’s club
smashed into Kunta once again, staggering him to his knees,
and the toubob sprang loose. His head ready to explode, his
body reeling, raging at his own weakness, Kunta reared up
and roared, nailing blindly at the air, everything blurred with
tears and blood and sweat. He was fighting for more than his
life now. Omoro! Binta! Lamin! Suwadu! Madi! The toubob’s
heavy club crashed against his temple. And all went black.
CHAPTER 34
Kunta wondered if he had gone mad. Naked, chained,
shackled, he awoke on his back between two other men in a
pitch darkness full of steamy heat and sickening stink and a
nightmarish bedlam of shrieking, weeping, praying, and
vomiting. He could feel and smell his own vomit on his chest
and belly. His whole body was one spasm of pain from the
heatings he had received in the four days since his capture.
But the place where the hot iron had been put between his
shoulders hurt the worst. A rat’s thick, furry body brushed his
cheek, its whiskered nose sniffing at his mouth. Quivering with
revulsion, Kunta snapped his teeth together desperately, and
the rat ran away. In rage, Kunta snatched and kicked against
the shackles that bound his wrists and ankles. Instantly, angry
exclamations and jerking came back from whomever he was
shackled to. The shock and pain adding to his fury, Kunta
lunged upward, his head bumping hard against wood–right on
the spot where he had been clubbed by the tou- bob back in
the woods. Gasping and snarling, he and the unseen man next
to him battered their iron cuffs at each other until both slumped
back in exhaustion. Kunta felt himself starting to vomit again,
and he tried to force it back, but couldn’t. His already emptied
belly squeezed up a thin, sour fluid that drained from the side
of his mouth as he lay wishing that he might die. He told
himself that he mustn’t lose control again if he wanted to save
his strength and his sanity. After a while, when he felt he could
move again, he very slowly and carefully explored his
shackled right wrist and ankle with his left hand. They were
bleeding. He pulled lightly on the chain; it seemed to be
connected to the left ankle and wrist of the man he had fought
with. On Kunta’s left, chained to him by the ankles, lay some
other man, someone who kept up a steady moaning, and they
were all so close that their shoulders, arms, and legs touched
if any of them moved even a little. Remembering the wood he
had bumped into with his head, Kunta drew himself upward
again, just enough for it to bump gently; there wasn’t enough
space even to sit up. And behind his head was a wooden wall.
I’m trapped like a leopard in a snare, he thought. Then he
remembered sitting in the darkness of the manhood-training
hut after being taken blindfolded to the jujuo so many rains
before, and a sob welled up in his throat; but he fought it back.
Kunta made himself think about the cries and groans he was
hearing all around him. There must be many men here in the
blackness, some close, some farther away, some beside him,
others in front of him, but all in one room, if that’s what this
was. Straining his. ears, he could hear still more cries, but
they were muffled and came from below, beneath the splintery
planking he lay on. Listening more intently, he began to
recognize the different tongues of those around him. Over and
over, in Arabic, a Fulani was shouting, “Allah in heaven, help
me!” And a man of the Serere tribe was hoarsely wailing what
must have been the names of his family. But mostly Kunta
heard Mandinkas, the loudest of them babbling wildly in the
sira kango secret talk of men, vowing terrible deaths to all toubob.
The cries of the others were so slurred with weeping that
Kunta could identify neither their words nor their languages,
although he knew that some of the strange talk he heard must
come from beyond The Gambia. As Kunta lay listening, he
slowly began to realize that he was trying to push from his
mind the impulse to relieve the demands of his bowels, which
he had been forcing back for days. But he could hold it in no
longer, and finally the feces curled out between his buttocks.
Revolted at himself, smelling his own addition to the stench,
Kunta began sobbing, and again his belly spasmed,
producing this time only a little spittle; but he kept gagging.
What sins was he being punished for in such a manner as
this? He pleaded to Allah for an answer. It was sin enough that
he hadn’t prayed once since the morning he went for the wood
to make his drum. Though he couldn’t get onto his knees, and
he knew not even which way was east, he closed his eyes
where he lay and prayed, beseeching Allah’s forgiveness.
Afterward, Kunta lay for a long time bathing dully in his pains,
and slowly became aware that one of them, in his knotted
stomach, was nothing more than hunger. It occurred to him
that he hadn’t eaten anything since the night before his
capture. He was trying to remember if he had slept in all that
time, when suddenly he saw himself walking along a trail in the
forest; behind him walked two blacks, ahead of him a pair of
toubob with their strange clothes and their long hair in strange
colors. Kunta jerked his eyes open and shook his head; he
was soaked in sweat and his heart was pounding. He had
been asleep without knowing. It had been a nightmare; or was
the nightmare this stinking blackness? No, it was as real as
the scene in the forest in his dream had been. Against his will,
it all came back to him. After fighting the black slatees and the
toubob so desperately in the grove of trees, he remembered
awakening–into a wave of blinding pain–and finding himself
gagged, blindfolded, and bound with his wrists behind him
and his ankles hobbled with knotted rope. Thrashing to break
free, he was jabbed savagely with sharp sticks until blood ran
down his legs. Yanked onto his feet and prodded with the
sticks to begin moving, he stumbled ahead of them as fast as
his hobbles would permit. Somewhere along the banks of the
belong–Kunta could tell by the sounds, and the feel of the soft
ground beneath his feet–he was shoved down into a canoe.
Still blindfolded, he heard the slatees grunting, rowing swiftly,
with the toubob hitting him whenever he struggled. Landing,
again they walked, until finally that night they reached a place
where they threw Kunta on the ground, tied him with his back
to a bamboo fence and, without warning, pulled off his
blindfold. It was dark, but he could see the pale face of the
toubob standing over him, and the silhouettes of others like
him on the ground nearby. The toubob held out some meat for
him to bite off a piece. He turned his head aside and clamped
his jaws. Hissing with rage, the toubob grabbed him by the
throat and tried to force his mouth open. When Kunta kept it
shut tight, the toubob drew back his fist and punched him hard
in the face. Kunta was let alone the rest of the night. At dawn,
he began to make out–tied to other bamboo trunks–the
figures of the other captured people, eleven of them–six men,
three girls, and two children–all guarded closely by armed
slatees and toubob. The girls were naked; Kunta could only
avert his eyes; he never had seen a woman naked before.
The men, also naked, sat with murderous hatred etched in
their faces, grimly silent and crusted with blood from whip
cuts. But the girls were crying out, one about dead loved ones
in a burned village; another, bitterly weeping, rocked back and
forth cooing endearments to an imaginary infant in her cradled
arms; and the third shrieked at intervals that she was going to
Allah. In wild fury, Kunta lunged back and forth trying to break
his bonds. A heavy blow with a club again knocked him
senseless. When he came to, he found that he too was naked,
that all of their heads had been shaved and their bodies
smeared with red palm oil. At around noonday, two new
toubob entered the grove. The slatees, now all grins, quickly
untied the captives from the bamboo trunks, shouting to them
to stand in a line. Kunta’s muscles were knotted with rage and
fear. One of the new toubob was short and stout and his hair
was white. The other towered over him, tall and huge and
scowling, with deep knife scars across his face, but it was the
white-haired one before whom the slatees and the other
toubob grinned and all but bowed. Looking at them all, the
white-haired one gestured for Kunta to step forward, and
lurching backward in terror, Kunta screamed as a whip seared
across his back. A slatee from behind grappled him
downward to his knees, jerking his head backward. The whitehaired
toubob calmly spread Kunta’s trembling lips and
studied his teeth. Kunta attempted to spring up, but after
another blow of the whip, he stood as ordered, his body
quivering as the toubob’s fingers explored his eyes, his chest,
his belly. When the fingers grasped his foto, he lunged aside
with a choked cry. Two slatees and more lashings were
needed to force Kunta to bend over almost double, and in
horror he felt his buttocks being spread wide apart. Then the
white-haired toubob roughly shoved Kunta aside and, one by
one, he similarly inspected the others, even the private parts
of the wailing girls. Then whips and shouted commands sent
the captives all dashing around within the enclosure, and next
springing up and down on their haunches. After observing
them, the white-haired toubob and the huge one with the knifescarred
face stepped a little distance away and spoke briefly
in low tones. Stepping back, the white-haired one, beckoning
another toubob, jabbed his finger at four men, one of them
Kunta, and two of the girls. The toubob looked shocked,
pointing at the others in a beseeching manner. But the whitehaired
one shook his head firmly. Kunta sat straining against
his bonds, his head threatening to burst with rage, as the
toubob argued heatedly. After a while, the white-haired one
disgustedly wrote something on a piece of paper that the
other toubob angrily accepted. Kunta struggled and howled
with fury as the slatees grabbed him again, wrestling him to a
seated position with his back arched. Eyes wide with terror,
he watched as a toubob withdrew from the fire a long, thin iron
that the white-haired one had brought with him. Kunta was
already thrashing and screaming as the iron exploded pain
between his shoulders. The bamboo grove echoed with the
screams of the others, one by one. Then red palm oil was
rubbed over the peculiar LL shape Kunta saw on their backs.
Within the hour, they were hobbling in a line of clanking chains,
with the slatees’ ready whips flailing down on anyone who
balked or stumbled. Kunta’s back and shoulders were
ribboned with bleeding cuts when late that night they reached
two canoes hidden under thick, overhanging mangroves at the
river’s banks. Split into two groups, they were rowed through
darkness by the slatees, with the toubob lashing out at any
sign of struggle. When Kunta saw a vast dark shape looming
up ahead in the night, he sensed that this was his last chance.
Springing and lunging amid shouts and screams around him,
he almost upset the canoe in his struggle to leap overboard;
but he was bound to the others and couldn’t make it over the
side. He almost didn’t feel the blows of the whips and clubs
against his ribs, his back, his face, his belly, his head–as the
canoe bumped against the side of the great dark thing.
Through the pain, he could feel the warm blood pouring down
his face, and he heard above him the exclamations of many
toubob. Then ropes were being looped around him, and he
was helpless to resist. After being half pushed and half pulled
up some strange rope ladder, he had enough strength left to
twist his body wildly in another break for freedom; again he
was lashed with whips, and hands were grabbing him amid an
overwhelming toubob smell and the sound’ of women
shrieking and loud toubob cursing. Through swollen lids,
Kunta saw a thicket of legs and feet all around him, and
managing an upward glance while trying to shield his bleeding
face with his forearm, he saw the short toubob with the white
hair standing calmly making marks in a small book with a
stubby pencil. Then he felt himself being snatched upright and
shoved roughly across a flat space. He caught a glimpse of
tall poles with thick wrappings of coarse white cloth. Then he
was being guided, stumbling weakly down some kind of
narrow steps, into a place of pitch blackness; at the same
instant, his nose was assaulted by an unbelievable stink, and
his ears by cries of anguish. Kunta began vomiting as the
toubob–holding dim yellowish flames that burned within metal
frames carried by a ring–shackled his wrists and ankles, then
shoved him backward, close between two other moaning
men. Even in his terror, he sensed that lights bobbing in other
directions meant that the toubob were taking those who had
come with him to be shackled elsewhere. Then he felt his
thoughts slipping; he thought he must be dreaming. And then,
mercifully, he was.
CHAPTER 35
Only the rasping sound of the deck hatch being opened told
Kunta if it was day or night. Hearing the latch click, he would
jerk his head up–the only free movement that his chains and
shackles would allow–and four shadowy toubob figures would
descend, two of them with bobbing lights and whips guarding
the other pair as they all moved along the narrow aisle ways
pushing a tub of food. They would thrust tin pans of the stuff up
onto the filth between each two shackle mates So far, each
time the food had come, Kunta had clamped his jaws shut,
preferring to starve to death, until the aching of his empty
stomach had begun to make his hunger almost as terrible as
the pains from his heatings. When those on Kunta’s level had
been fed, the lights showed the toubob descending farther
below with the rest of the food. Less often than the feeding
times, and usually when it was night outside, the toubob would
bring down into the hold some new captives, screaming and
whimpering in terror as they were shoved and lashed along to
wherever they were to be chained into empty spaces along
the rows of hard plank shelves. One day, shortly after a
feeding time, – Kunta’s ears picked up a strange, muted
sound that seemed to vibrate through the ceiling over his
head. Some of the other men heard it too, and their moaning
ended abruptly. Kunta lay listening intently; it sounded as if
many feet were dashing about overhead. Then–much nearer
to them in the darkness–came a new sound, as of some very
heavy object being creaked very slowly upward. Kunta’s
naked back felt an odd vibration from the hard, enough
planking he lay on. He felt a tightening, a swelling yithin his
chest, and he lay frozen. About him he heard: hudding sounds
that he knew were men lunging upward, straining against their
chains. It felt as if all of his blood lad rushed into his pounding
head. And then terror went; lawing into his vitals as he sensed
in some way that this place was moving, taking them away.
Men started shouting ill around him, screaming to Allah and
His spirits, banging their heads against the planking,
thrashing wildly against their rattling shackles. “Allah, I will
never pray to you less than five times daily!” Kunta shrieked
into the bedlam, “Hear me! Help me!” The anguished cries,
weeping, and prayers continued, subsiding only as one after
another exhausted man went limp and lay gasping for breath
in the stinking blackness. Kunta knew that he would never see
Africa again. He;ould feel clearly now, through his body
against the planks, 3. slow, rocking motion, sometimes
enough that his shouliers or arms or hips would press against
the brief warmth 3f one of the men he was chained between.
He had shouted so hard that he had no voice left, so his mind
screamed it instead: “Kill toubob–and their traitor black
helpers!” He was sobbing quietly when the hatch opened and
the four toubob came bumping down with their tub of food.
Again he clamped his jaws against his spasms of hunger, but
then he thought of something the kin tango had once said–that
warriors and hunters must eat well to have greater strength
than other men. Starving himself meant that weakness would
prevent him from killing toubob. So this time, when the pan
was thrust onto the boards between him and the man next to
him, Kunta’s fingers also clawed into the thick mush. It tasted
like ground maize botled’-with palm oil. Each gulping swallow
pained his throat in the spot where he had been choked for
not eating before, but he swallowed until the pan was empty.
He could feel the food like a lump in his belly, and soon it was
rising up his throat. He couldn’t stop it, and a moment later the
gruel was back on the planking. He could hear, over the sound
of his own retching, that of others doing the same thing. As the
lights approached the end of the long shelf of planks on which
Kunta lay, suddenly he heard chains rattling, a head bumping,
and then a man screaming hysteri cally in a curious mixture of
Mandinka and what sounded like some toubob words. An
uproarious burst of laughter came from the toubob with the
feeding tub, then their whips lashing down, until the man’s
cries lapsed into babbling and whimpering. Could it be? Had
he heard an Afri- can speaking toubob? Was there a slatee
down there among them? Kunta had heard that toubob would
often betray their black traitor helpers and throw them into
chains. After the toubob had gone on down to the level below,
scarcely a sound was heard on Kunta’s level until they
reappeared with their emptied tub and climbed back up
outside, closing the hatch behind them. At that instant, an
angry buzzing began in different tongues, like bees swarming.
Then, down the shelf from where Kunta lay, there was a heavy
chain-rattling blow, a howl of pain and bkter cursing in the
same hysterical Mandinka. K-until heard the man shriek, “You
think I am toubob?” There were more violent, rapid blows and
desperate screams. Then the blows stopped, and in the
blackness of the hold came a high squealing–and then an
awful gurgling sound, as of a man whose breath was being
choked off. Another rattling of chains, a tattoo of bare heels
kicking at the planks, then quiet. Kunta’s head was throbbing,
and his heart was pounding, as voices around him began
screaming, “Slatee! Slatees die!” Then Kunta was screaming
along with them and joining in a wild rattling of chains–when
suddenly with a rasping sound the hatch was opened,
admitting its shaft of daylight and a group of toubob with lights
and whips. They had obviously heard the commotion below
them, and though now almost total silence had fallen in the
hold, the toubob rushed among the aisles shouting and
lashing left and right with their whips. When they left without
finding the dead man, the hold remained silent for a long
moment. Then, very quietly, Kunta heard a mirthless laugh
from the end of the shelf next to where the traitor lay dead. The
next feeding was a tense one. As if the toubob sensed
something amiss, their whips fell even more often than usual.
Kunta jerked and cried out as a bolt of pain cut across his
legs. He had learned that when anyone didn’t cry out from a
blow, he would get a severe beating until he did. Then he
clawed and gulped down the tasteless mush as his eyes
followed the lights moving on down along the shelf. Every man
in the hold was listening when one of the toubob exclaimed
something to the others. A jostling of lights could be seen, then
more exclamations and cursings, and then one of the toubob
rushed down the aisle and up through the hatch, and he soon
returned with two more. Kunta could hear the iron cuffs and
chains being unlocked. Two of the toubob then half carried,
half dragged the body of the dead man along the aisle and up
the hatch, while the others continued bumping their food tub
along the aisles. The food team was on the level below when
four more toubob climbed down through the hatch and went
directly to where the slatee had been chained. By twisting his
head, Kunta could see the lights raised high. With violent
cursing, two of the toubob sent their whips whistling down
against flesh. Whoever was being beaten refused at first to
scream; though just listening to the force of the blows was
almost paralyzing to Kunta, he could hear the beaten man
flailing against his chains in the agony of his torture–and of his
grim determination not to cry out. Then the toubob were
almost shrieking their curses, and the lights could be seen
changing hands as one man spelled the other with the lash.
Finally the beaten man began screaming–first a Foulah curse,
then things that could not be understood, though they too were
in the Foulah tongue. Kunta’s mind flashed a thought of the
quiet, gentle Foulah tribe who tended Mandinka cattle–as the
lashing sounds continued until the beaten man barely
whimpered. Then the four toubob left, cursing, gasping, and
gagging in the stink. The moans of the Foulah shivered
through the black hold. Then, after a while, a clear voice called
out in Man- dinka, “Share his pain! We must be in this place
as one village!” The voice belonged to an elder. He was right.
The Foulah’s pains had been as Kunta’s own. He felt himself
about to burst with rage. He also felt, in some nameless way,
a terror greater than he had ever known before, and it seemed
to spread from the marrow of his bones. Part of him wanted to
die, to escape all of this; but no, he must live to avenge it. He
forced himself to lie absolutely still. It took a long while, but
finally he felt his strain and confusion, even his body’s pains,
begin to ebb–except for the place between his shoulders
where he had been burned with the hot iron. He found that his
mind could focus better now on the only choice that seemed to
lie before him and the others: Either they would all die in this
nightmare place, or somehow the toubob would have to be
overcome and killed.
CHAPTER 36
The stinging bites, then the itching of the body lice, steadily
grew worse. In the filth, the lice as well as the fleas had
multiplied by the thousands until they swarmed all over the
hold. They were worst wherever the body crevices held any
hair. Kunta’s armpits, and around his foto, felt as if they were
on fire, and his free hand scratched steadily wherever his
shackled hand couldn’t reach. He kept having thoughts of
springing up and running away; then, a moment later, his eyes
would fill with tears of frustration, anger would rise in him, and
he would fight it all back down until he felt again some kind of
calm. The worst thing was that he couldn’t move anywhere; he
felt he wanted to bite through his chains. He decided that he
must keep himself focused upon something, anything to
occupy his mind or his hands, or else he would go mad–as
some men in the hold seemed to have done already, judging
from the things they cried out. By lying very still and listening to
the breathing sounds of the men on either side of him, Kunta
had long since learned to tell when either of them was asleep
or awake. He concentrated now upon hearing farther away
from him. With more and more practice at listening intently to
repeated sounds, he discovered that his ears after a while
could discern their location almost exactly; it was a peculiar
sensation, almost as if his ears were serving for eyes. Now
and then, among the groans and curses that filled the
darkness, he heard the thump of a man’s head against the
planks he lay on. And there was another odd and monotonous
noise. It would stop at intervals, then resume after a while; it
sounded as if two pieces of metal were being rubbed hard
together, and after hearing more of it Kunta figured that
someone was trying to wear the links of his; ha ins apart.
Kunta often heard, too, brief exclamations and janglings of
chains as two men furiously fought, jerking their shackles
against each other’s ankles and wrists. Kunta had lost track of
time. The urine, vomit, and feces that reeked everywhere
around him had spread into a slick paste covering the hard
planking of the long shelves on which they lay. Just when he
had begun to think he souldn’t stand it any more, eight toubob
came down the hatchway, cursing loudly. Instead of the routine
food container, they carried what seemed to be some kind of
long- handled hoes and four large tubs. And Kunta noticed
with astonishment that they were not wearing any clothes at
all. The naked toubob almost immediately began vomiting
worse than any of the others who had come before. In the glow
of their lights, they all but sprang along the aisles in teams of
two, swiftly thrusting their hoes up onto the shelves and
scraping some of the mess into their tubs. As; ach tub was
filled, the toubob would drag it back along the aisle and go
bumping it up the steps through the opened hatchway to
empty it outside, and then they would return. The toubob were
gagging horribly by now, their faces contorted grotesquely,
and their hairy, colorless bodies covered with blobs of the
mess they were scraping off the shelves. But when they
finished their job and were gone, there was no difference in
the hot, awful, choking stench of the hold. The next time that
more than the usual four toubob descended with their food
tubs, Kunta guessed that there must be as many as twenty of
them clumping down the hatch steps. He lay frozen. Turning
his head this way and that, he could see small groups of
toubob posting themselves around the hold, some carrying
whips and guns, guarding others with lights upraised at the
ends of each shelf of chained men. A knot of fear grew in
Kunta’s belly as he began hearing strange clicking sounds,
then heavy rattlings. Then his shackled right ankle began
jerking; with Bashing terror he realized that the toubob were
releasing him. Why? What terrible thing was going to happen
now? He lay still, his right ankle no longer feeling the familiar
weight of the chain, hearing all around the hold more clicking
sounds and the rattling of chains being pulled. Then the
toubob started shouting and lashing with their whips. Kunta
knew that it meant for them to get down off their shelves. His
cry of alarm joined a sudden bedlam of shrieks in different
tongues as the men reared their bodies upward, heads
thudding against the ceiling timbers. The whips lashed down
amid screams of pain as one after another pair of men went
thumping down into the aisle ways Kunta and his Wolof
shackle mate hugged each other on the shelf as the searing
blows jerked them convulsively back and forth. Then hands
clamped roughly around their ankles and hauled them across
the shelf s mushy filth and into the tangle of other men in the
aisle- way, all of them howling under the toubob whips.
Wrenching and twisting in vain to escape the pain, he
glimpsed shapes moving against the light of the opened
hatchway. The toubob were snatching men onto their feet–one
pair after another–then beating and shoving them along,
stumbling in the darkness, toward the hatchway’s steps.
Kunta’s legs felt separated from the rest of his body as he
went lurching alongside the Wolof, shackled by their wrists,
naked, crusted with filth, begging not to be eaten. The first
open daylight in nearly fifteen days hit Kunta with the force of a
hammer between his eyes. He reeled under the bursting pain,
flinging his free hand up to cover his eyes. His bare feet told
him that whatever they were walking on was moving slightly
from side to side. Fumbling blindly ahead, with even his
cupped hand and clamped eyelids admitting some tormenting
light, trying futilely to breathe through nostrils nearly plugged
with snot, he gaped open his cracked lips and took a deep
breath of sea air–the first of his life. His lungs convulsed from
its rich cleanness, and he crumpled to the deck, vomiting
alongside his shackle mate All about him he heard more
vomiting, chains clanking, lashes meeting flesh, and shrieks of
pain amid toubob shouts and curses and strange flapping
sounds over bead When another whip ripped across his back,
Kunta shrank to one side, hearing his Wolof partner gasp as
the lash hit him. It kept tearing at them both until somehow they
stumbled to their feet He slit his eyes to see if he could
escape some of the blows; but new pains stabbed into his
head as their tormentor shoved them toward where Kunta
could see the blurred forms of other toubob passing a length
of chain through the shackles around each man’s ankles.
There had been more of them down there in the darkness than
he had ever realized–and far more toubob than had ever gone
below. In the bright sunlight, they looked even paler and more
horrible, their faces pitted with the holes of disease, their
peculiar long hair in colors of yellow or black or red, some of
them even with hair around their mouths and under their chins.
Some were bony, others fat, some had ugly scars from knives,
or a hand, eye, or limb missing, and the backs of many were
crisscrossed with deep scars. It flashed through Kunta’s mind
how his teeth had been counted and inspected, for several of
these tou- bob he saw had but few teeth. Many of them were
spaced along the rails, holding whips, long knives, or some
kind of heavy metal stick with a hole in the end, and Kunta
could see beyond them an amazing sight–an unbelievable
endlessness of rolling blue water. He jerked his head upward
toward the slapping sounds above and saw that they came
from giant white sloths billowing among huge poles and many
ropes. The sloths seemed to be filled up with the wind. Turning
about, Kunta saw that a high barricade of bamboo taller than
any man extended completely across the width of the huge;
anoe. Showing through the barricade’s center was the gaping
black mouth of a huge, terrible-looking metal thing with i long,
thick, hollow shaft, and the tips of more metal sticks like the
ones the toubob had been holding at the rail. Both the huge
thing and the sticks were pointed toward where he and the
other naked men were grouped. As their ankle shackles were
being linked onto the new; hain, Kunta got the chance to take
a good look at his Wolof shackle mate for the first time. Like
himself, the man was crusted from head to foot with filth. He
seemed about the rains of Kunta’s father Omoro, and the
Wolof had that ribe’s classic facial features, and he was very
black of; olor. The Wolof’s back was bleeding from where the
whip- aings had cut into him, and pus was oozing from where
an LL mark had been burned into his back. Kunta realized, is
their eyes searched each other, that the Wolof was star- ng at
him with the same astonishment. Amid the commoJon, they
had time to stare also at the other naked men, nost of them
gibbering in their terror. From the different ‘acial features,
tribal tattoos, and scarification marks, Kunta could tell that
some were Foulah, Jola, Serere, and Wolof, like his partner,
but most were Mandinkas–and there were some he could not
be sure of. With excitement, Kunta saw the one he was sure
must have killed the slatee. He was indeed a Foulah; blood
from the beating he had received was crusted all over him.
They were all soon being shoved and whipped toward where
another chain of ten men was being doused with buckets of
seawater drawn up from over the side. Then other toubob with
long-handled brushes were scrubbing the screaming men.
Kunta screamed, too, as the drenching salt water hit him,
stinging like fire in his own bleeding whip cuts and the burned
place on his back. He cried even louder as the stiff brush
bristles not only loosened and scraped off some of his body’s
crusted filth but also tore open his scabbed lash cuts. He saw
the water frothing and pinkish at their feet. Then they were
herded back toward the center of the deck, where they
flopped down in a huddle. Kunta gawked upward to see
toubob springing about on the poles like monkeys, pulling at
the many ropes among the great white cloths. Even in Kunta’s
shock, the heat of the sun felt warm and good, and he felt an
incredible sense of relief that his skin was freed of some of its
filth. A sudden chorus of cries brought the chained men jerking
upright. About twenty women, most of them teenaged, and
four children, came running naked and without chains from
behind the barricade, ahead of two grinning toubob with
whips. Kunta instantly recognized the girls who had been
brought on board with him–as with flooding rage he watched
all of the toubob leering at thair nakedness, some of them
even rubbing their fotos. By sheer force of will, he fought the
urge to go lunging after the nearest toubob despite their
weapons. Hands clutched into fists, he sucked hard for air to
keep breathing, wrenching his eyes away from the terrified
women. Then a toubob near the rail began pulling out and
pushing in between his hands some peculiar folding thing that
made a wheezing sound. Another joined in, beating on a drum
from Africa, as other toubob now moved themselves into a
ragged line with the naked men, women, and children staring
at them. The toubob in the line had a length of rope, and each
of them looped one ankle within it, as if that rope was a length
of chain such as linked the naked men. Smiling now, they
began jumping up and down to- ether in short hops, keeping
in time with the drumbeats ad the wheezing thing. Then they
and the other armed toubob gestured for the men in chains to
jump in the same manner. But when the chained men
continued to stand as if petrified, the toubobs’ grins became
scowls, and they began laying about with whips. “Jump!”
shouted the oldest woman suddenly, in Man- dinka. She was
of about the rains of Kunta’s mother Binta. Bounding out, she
began jumping herself. “Jump!” she; ried shrilly again, glaring
at the girls and children, and bey jumped as she did. “Jump to
kill toubob!” she shrieked, aer quick eyes flashing at the
naked men, her arms and hands darting in the movements of
the warrior’s dance. And then, as her meaning sank home,
one after another shackled pair of men began a weak,
stumbling hopping up and down, their chains clanking against
the deck. With his head down, Kunta saw the welter of
hopping feet and legs, Feeling his own legs rubbery under him
as his breath came in gasps. Then the singing of the woman
was joined by the girls. It was a happy sound, but the words
they sang told how these horrible toubob had taken every
woman into the dark corners of the canoe each night and
used them like dogs. “Toubob fa!” (Kill toubob they shrieked
with smiles and laughter. The naked, jumping men joined in:
“Toubob fa!” Even the toubob were grinning now, some of
them slapping their hands with pleasure. But Kunta’s knees
beganoto buckle beneath him and his throat went tight when
he saw, approaching him, the short, stocky toubob with white
hair, and with him the huge, cowling one with the knife-scarred
face who also had aeen at that place where Kunta was
examined and beaten and choked and burned before he was
brought here. In an instant, as the other naked people saw
these two, a sudden silence fell, and the only sound to be
heard was that of great, slapping cloths overhead, for even the
rest of the toubob had stiffened at their presence. Barking out
something hoarsely, the huge one cleared the other toubob
away from the chained people. From his belt there dangled a
large ring of the slender, shiny things that Kunta had glimpsed
others using as they had opened he chains. And then the
white-haired one went moving imong the naked people,
peering closely at their bodies. Wherever he saw whip cuts
badly festered, or pus draining from rat bites or burned
places, he smeared on some grease from a can that the huge
one handed to him. Or the huge one himself would sprinkle a
yellowish powder from a container on wrists and ankles that
became a sickly, moist, grayish color beneath the iron cuffs.
As the two toubob moved nearer to him, Kunta shrank in fear
and fury, but then the white-haired one was smearing grease
on his festering places and the huge one was sprinkling his
ankles and wrists with the yellowish powder, neither of them
seeming even to recognize who Kunta was. Then, suddenly,
amid rising shouts among the toubob, one of the girls who had
been brought with Kunta was springing wildly between frantic
guards. As several of them went clutching and diving for her,
she hurled herself screaming over me rail and went plunging
downward. In the great shouting commotion, the white-haired
toubob and the huge one snatched up whips and with bitter
curses lashed the backs of those who had gone sprawling
after,” letting her slip from their grasp. Then the toubob up
among the cloths were yelling and pointing toward the water.
Turning in that direction, the naked people saw the girl
bobbing in the waves–and not far away, a pair of dark fins
coursing swiftly toward her. Then came another scream–a
blood-chilling one–then a frothing and thrashing, and she was
dragged from sight, leaving behind only a redness in the
Water where she had been. For the first time, no whips fell as
the chained people, sick with horror, were herded back into
the dark hold and rechained into their places. Kunta’s head
was reeling. After the fresh air of the ocean, the stench
smelled even worse than before, and after the daylight, the
hold seemed even darker. When soon a new disturbance
arose, seeming somewhat distant, his practiced ears told him
that the tou- bob were driving up onto the deck the terrified
men from the level below. After a while, he heard near his right
ear a low mutter. “Jula?” Kunta’s heart leaped. He knew very
little of the Wolof tongue, but he did know that Wolof and some
others used the word juta to mean travelers and traders who
were usually Mandinkas. And twisting his head a bit closer to
the Wolofs ear, Kunta whispered, “Jula. Mandinka. ” For
moments, as he lay tensely, the Wolof made no return sound. It
went flashing through Kunta’s head that if he; ould only speak
many languages, as his father’s brothers “id–but he was
ashamed to have brought them to this ilace, even in his
thoughts. “Wolof. Jebou Manga,” the other man whispered
finally, and Kunta knew that was his name. “Kunta Kinte,” he
whispered back. Exchanging a whisper now and then in their
desperation to communicate, they picked at each other’s
minds to learn a new word here, another there, in their
respective tongues. It was much as they had learned their
early words as first- kafo children. During one of the intervals
of silence between them, Kunta remembered how when he
had been a lookout against the baboons in the groundnut
fields at night, the distant fire of a Fulani herdsman had given
him a sense of comfort and he had wished that there had
been some way he could exchange words with this man he
had never seen. It was as if that wish were being realized now,
except that it was with a Wolof, unseen for the weeks they had
been lying there shackled to each other. Every Wolof
expression Kunta had ever heard he now dragged from his
memory. He knew that the Wolof was doing the same with
Mandinka words, of which he knew more than Kunta knew of
Wolof words. In another time of silence between them, Kunta
sensed that the man who lay on his other side, who never had
made any sound other than moaning in pain, was listening
closely to them. Kunta realized from the low murmuring that
spread gradually throughout the hold that once the men had
actually been able to see each other up in the daylight, he and
his own shackle mate weren’t the only ones trying now to
communi- sate with one another. The murmuring kept
spreading. The hold would fall silent now only when the toubob
came with the food tub, or with the brushes to clean the filth
from the shelves. And there was a new quality to the quietness
that would fall at these times; for the first time since they had
been captured and thrown in chains, it was as if there was
among the men a sense of being together.
CHAPTER 37
The next time the men were taken up onto the deck, Kunta
made a point of looking at the man behind him in line, the one
who lay beside him to the left when they were below. He was a
Serere tribesman much older than Kunta, and his body, front
and back, was creased with whip cuts, some of them so deep
and festering that Kunta felt badly for having wished
sometimes that he might strike the man in the darkness for
moaning so steadily in his pain. Staring back at Kunta, the
Serere’s dark eyes were full of fury and defiance. A whip
lashed out even as they stood looking at each other–this time
at Kunta, spurring him to move ahead. The force of the blow
drove him nearly to his knees and triggered an explosion of
rage. With his throat ripping out almost an animal’s cry, Kunta
lunged off balance toward the toubob, only to fall, sprawling,
dragging his shackle mate down with him, as the tou- bob
nimbly sprang clear of them both. Men milled around them as
the toubob, his eyes narrowing with hatred, brought the whip
down over and over on both Kunta and the Wolof, like a
slashing knife. Trying to roll away, Kunta was kicked heavily in
his ribs. But somehow he and the gasping Wolof managed to
stagger back up among the other men from their shelf who
were shambling toward their dousing with buckets of
seawater. A moment later, the stinging saltiness of it was
burning in Kunta’s wounds, and his screams joined those of
others over the sound of the drum and the wheezing thing that
had again begun marking time for the chained men to jump
and dance for the toubob. Kunta and the Wolof were so weak
from their new beating that twice they stumbled, but whip
blows and kicks sent them hopping clumsily up and down in
their chains. So great was his fury that Kunta was barely
aware of the women singing “Toubob fa!” And when he had
finally been chained back town in his place in the dark hold,
his heart throbbed with lust to murder toubob. Every few days
the eight naked toubob would again come into the stinking
darkness and scrape their tubs full of the excrement that had
accumulated on the shelves where the chained men lay. Kunta
would lie still with his syes staring balefully in hatred, following
the bobbing orange lights, listening to the toubob cursing and
sometimes ilipping and falling into the slickness underfoot–so
plentiful now, because of the increasing looseness of the
men’s bowels, that the filth had begun to drop off the edges of
the shelves down into the aisle way The last time they were on
deck, Kunta had noticed a Tian limping on a badly infected
leg. The chief toubob had ipplied grease to it, but it hadn’t
helped, and the man had egun to scream horribly in the
darkness of the hold. When they next went on deck, he had to
be helped up,; nd Kunta saw that the leg, which had been
grayish be- ore, had begun to rot and stink even in the fresh
air. this time the man was kept up on deck when the rest were
taken back below. A few days later, the women told the other
prisoners in their singing that the man’s leg had been cut off
and that one of the women had been brought to tend him, but
that the man had died that night and been thrown over the
side. Starting then, when the toubob came to clean the
shelves, they also dropped red- dot pieces of metal into pails
of strong vinegar. The; louds of acrid steam left the hold
smelling better, but soon it would again be overwhelmed by
the choking stink. [t was a smell that Kunta felt would never
leave his lungs and skin. The steady murmuring that went on in
the hold when- sver the toubob were gone kept growing in
volume and intensity as the men began to communicate better
and better with one another. Words not understood were
whispered from mouth 1o ear along the shelves until someone
who knew more than one tongue would send back their
meanings. In the process, all of the men along each shelf
[earned new words in tongues they had not spoken before.
Sometimes men jerked upward, bumping their heads, in the
double excitement of communicating with each other uid the
fact that it was being done without the toubob’s knowledge.
Muttering among themselves for hours, the men developed a
deepening sense of intrigue and of brotherhood. Though they
were of different villages and tribes, the feeling grew that they
were not from different peoples or places. When the toubob
next came to drive them up onto the deck, the chained men
marched as if they were on parade. And when they
descended again, several of those men who spoke several
tongues managed to change their position in line in order to
get chained at the ends of shelves, thus permitting more rapid
relaying of translations. The toubob never seemed to notice,
for they were either unable or unconcerned to distinguish one
chained man from another. Questions, and responses to
them, had begun spreading in the hold. “Where are we being
taken?” That brought a babble of bitterness. “Who ever
returned to tell us?” “Because they were eaten!” The question,
“How long have we been here?” brought a rash of guesses of
up to a moon, until the question was translated to a man who
had been able to keep a count of daylights through a small air
vent near where he was chained; he said that he had counted
eighteen days since the great canoe had sailed. Because of
intrusions by toubob with their food tub or their scrapers, an
entire day might be used up in relaying of responses to a
single statement or question. Anxious inquiries were passed
along for men who might know each other. “Is anyone here
from Barrakunda village?” someone asked one day, and after
a time there came winging back from mouth to ear the joyous
response, “I, Jabon Sallah, am here!” One day, Kunta nearly
burst with excitement when the Wolof hastily whispered, “Is
anyone here from Juffure village?” “Yes, Kunta Kinte!” he sent
back breathlessly. He lay almost afraid to breathe for the hour
that it took an answer to return: “Yes, that was the name. I
heard the drums of his grieving village.” Kunta dissolved into
sobs, his mind streaming with pictures of his family around a
flapping white cockerel that died on its back as the village
wadanela went to spread that sad news among all of the
people who would then come to Omoro, Binta, Lamin,
Suwadu, and the baby Madi, all of them squatting about and
weeping as the village drums beat out the words to inform
whoever might hear them far away that a son of the village
named Kunta Kinte now was considered gone forever. Days
of talking sought answers to the question: “How could the
toubob of this canoe be attacked and killed?” Did anyone
have or know of anything that might be used as weapons?
None did. Up on the deck, had anyone noticed any
carelessness or weaknesses on the part of the toubob that
could be useful to a surprise attack? Again, none had. The
most useful information of any sort had some from the
women’s singing as the men danced in their chains: that about
thirty toubob were riding with them on this big canoe. There
had seemed to be many more, but the women were in a better
position to count them. The women said also that there had
been more toubob at the beginning of the voyage, but five had
died. They had been sewn inside white cloths and thrown
overboard while the white-haired chief toubob read from
some kind of book. The women also sang that the toubob
often fought and beat each other viciously, usually as a result
af arguments over which ones would next use the women.
Thanks to their singing, not much happened up on the leek
that wasn’t quickly told to the men dancing in their shains, who
then lay discussing it down in the hold. Then; ame the exciting
new development that contact had been sstablished with the
men who were chained on the level yet below. Silence would
fall in the hold where Kunta lay, md a question would be called
out from near the hatchway: “How many are down there?” And
after a time the inswer would circulate on Kunta’s level: “We
believe about sixty of us.” The relaying of any information from
whatever source seemed about the only function that would
justify their itaying alive. When there was no news, the men
would: alk of their families, their villages, their professions,
their arms, their hunts. And more and more frequently there
irose disagreements about how to kill the toubob, and when it
should be tried. Some of the men felt that, what- sver the
consequences, the toubob should be attacked the aext time
they were taken up on deck. Others felt that it would be wiser
to watch and wait for the best moment Bitter disagreements
began to flare up. One debate was suddenly interrupted when
the voice of an elder rang out, “Hear me! Though we are of
different tribes and tongues, remember that we are the same
people! We must be as one village, together in this place!”
Murmurings of approval spread swiftly within the hold. That
voice had been heard before, giving counsel in times of
special stress. It was a voice with experience and authority as
well as wisdom. Soon the information passed from mouth to
ear that the speaker had been the alcala of his village. After
some time, he spoke again, saying now that some leader
must be found and agreed upon, and some attack plan must
be proposed and agreed upon before there could be any
hope of overcoming the toubob, who were obviously both well
organized and heavily armed. Again, the hold soon filled with
mutterings of approval. The new and comforting sense of
closeness with the other men made Kunta feel almost less
aware of the stink and filth, and even the lice and rats. Then he
heard the new fear that was circulating–that yet another slatee
was believed to be somewhere on the level of men below.
One of the women had sung of having been among the group
of chained people whom this slatee had helped to bring,
blindfolded, onto this canoe. She had sung that it was night
when her blindfold was removed, but she had seen the toubob
give that slatee liquor, which he drank until he stumbled about
drunkenly, and then the toubob, all howling with laughter, had
knocked him unconscious and dragged him into the hold. The
woman sang that though she was not able to tell in any definite
way the face of that’ slatee, he was almost surely somewhere
below in chains like the rest, in terror that he would be
discovered and killed, as he now knew that one slatee had
been already. In the hold, the men discussed how probably
this slatee, too, was able to speak some toubob words, and in
hopes of saving his miserable life, he might try to warn the
toubob of any attack plans he learned of. It occurred to Kunta,
as he shook his shackles at a fat rat, why he had known little
of slatees until now. It was because none of them would dare
to live among people in villages, where even a strong
suspicion of who they were would bring about their instant
death. He remembered that back in Juffure he often had felt
that his own father Omoro and yet older men, when they sat
around the night fires, would seem to be needlessly occupied
with dark worries and gloomy speculations about dangers to
which he and the other younger men privately thought they
themselves would never succumb. But now he understood why
the older men had worried about the safety of the village; they
had known better than he how many slatees slithered about,
many of them in The Gambia. The despised tan-colored
sasso borro children of toubob fathers were easy to identify;
but not all. Kunta thought now about the girl of his village who
had been kidnaped by toubob and then escaped, who had
gone to the Council of Elders just before he had been taken
away, wanting to know what to do about her sasso borro
infant, and he wondered what the Council of Elders had
decided for her to do. Some few slatees, he learned now from
the talk in the hold, only supplied toubob canoes with such
goods as indigo, gold, and elephants’ teeth. But there were
hundreds of others who helped, toubob to burn villages and
capture people. Some of the men told how children were
enticed with slices of sugar cane; then bags were thrown over
their heads. Others said the slatees had beaten them
mercilessly during the marches after their capture. One man’s
wife, big with child, had died on the road. The wounded son of
another was left bleeding to die from whip cuts. The more
Kunta heard, the more his rage became as great for others as
for himself. He lay there in the darkness hearing the voice of
his father sternly warning him and Lamin never to wander off
anywhere alone; Kunta desperately wished that he had
heeded his father’s warnings. His heart sank with the thought
that he would never again be able to listen to his father, that for
the rest of whatever was going to be his life, he was going to
have to think for himself. “All things are the will of Allah!” That
statement–which had begun with the alcala–went from mouth
to ear, and when it came to Kunta from the man lying on his
left side, he turned his head to whisper the words to his Wolof
shackle mate After a moment, Kunta realized that the Wolof
hadn’t whispered the words on to the next man, and after
wondering for a while why not, he thought that perhaps he
hadn’t said them clearly, so he started to whisper the
message once again. But abruptly the Wolof spat out loudly
enough to be heard across the entire hold, “If your Allah wills
this, give me the devil!” From elsewhere in the darkness
came several loud exclamations of agreement with the Wolof,
and arguments broke out here and there. Kunta was deeply
shaken. The shocked realization that he lay with a pagan
burned into his brain, faith in Allah being as precious to him as
life itself. Until now he had respected the friendship and the
wise opinions of his older shackle mate But now Kunta knew
that there could never be any more companionship between
them.
CHAPTER 38
Up on the deck now, the women sang of having managed to
steal and hide a few knives, and some other things that could
be used as weapons. Down in the hold, even more strongly
than before, the men separated into two camps of opinion.
The leader of the group that felt the toubob should be attacked
without delay was a fierce-looking tattooed Wolof. On the
deck, every man had seen him dancing wildly in his chains
while baring his sharply filed teeth at the toubob, who clapped
for him because they thought he was grinning. Those who
believed in the wisdom of further watchful preparation were
led by the tawny Foulah who had been beaten for choking the
slatee to death. There were a few followers of the Wolof who
exclaimed that the toubob should be attacked when many of
them were in the hold, where the chained men could see
better than they and the element of surprise would be
greatest–but those who urged this plan were dismissed as
foolish by the others, who pointed out that the bulk of the
toubob would still be up on the deck, and thus able to kill the
chained men below like so many rats. Sometimes when the
arguments between the Wolof and the Foulah would reach the
point of shouting, the alcala would intervene, commanding
them to be quieter lest their discussion be overheard by the
toubob. Whichever leader’s thinking finally prevailed, Kunta
was ready to fight to the death. Dying held no fear for him any
more. Once he had decided that he would never see his
family and home again, he felt the same as dead already. His
only fear now was that he might die without at least one of the
toubob also dead by his hand. But the leader toward whom
Kunta was most inclined–along with most of the men, he felt–
was the cautious, whip-scarred Foulah. Kunta had found out
by now that most of the men in the hold were Mandinkas, and
every Mandinka knew well that the Foulah people were known
for spending years, even their entire lives if need be, to
avenge with death any serious wrong ever done to them. If
someone killed a Foulah and escaped, the Foulah’s sons
would never rest until one day they found and killed the
murderer. “We must be as one behind the leader we agree
upon,” the alcala counseled. There was angry muttering from
those who followed the Wolof, but when it had become clear
that most of the men sided with the Foulah, he promptly
issued his first order. “We must examine toubob’s every
action with the eyes of hawks. And when the time comes, we
must be warriors.” He advised them to follow the counsel of
the woman who had told them to look happy when they
jumped on deck in their chains. That would relax the toubob’s
guard, which would make them easier to take by surprise. And
the Foulah also said that every man should locate with his
eyes any weapon like object that he could swiftly grab and
use. Kunta was very pleased with himself, for during his times
up on deck, he had already spotted a spike, tied loosely
beneath a space of railing, which he intended to snatch and
use as a spear to plunge into the nearest toubob belly. His
fingers would clutch around the handle he imagined in his
hands every time he thought of it. Whenever the toubob would
jerk the hatch cover open and climb down among them,
shouting and wielding their whips, Kunta lay as still as a forest
animal. He thought of what the kin tango had said during
manhood training, that the hunter’ should learn from what Allah
himself had taught the animals–how to hide and watch the
hunters who sought to kill them. Kunta had lain for hours
thinking how the toubob seemed to enjoy causing pain. He
remembered with loathing the times when toubob would laugh
as they lashed the men–particularly those whose bodies were
covered with bad sores–and then disgustedly wipe off the
ooze that splattered onto them. Kunta lay also bitterly picturing
the toubob in his mind as they forced the women into the
canoe’s dark corners in the nights; he imagined that he could
hear the women screaming. Did the toubob have no women of
their own? Was that why they went like dogs after others’
women? The toubob seemed to respect nothing at all; they
seemed to have no gods, not even any spirits to worship. The
only thing that could take Kunta’s mind off the toubob–and
how to kill them–was the rats, which had become bolder and
bolder with each passing day. Their nose whiskers would
tickle between Kunta’s legs as they went to bite a sore that
was bleeding or running with pus. But the lice preferred to bite
him on the face, and they would suck at the liquids in the
corners of Kunta’s eyes, or the snot draining from his nostrils.
He would squirm his body, with his fingers darting and
pinching to crush any lice that he might trap between his nails.
But worse even than the lice and rats was the pain in Kunta’s
shoulders, elbows, and hips, stinging now like fire from the
weeks of steady rubbing against the hard, rough boards
beneath him. He had seen the raw patches on other men
when they were on deck, and his own cries joined theirs
whenever the big canoe pitched or rolled somewhat more
than usual. And Kunta had seen that when they were up on the
deck, some of the men had begun to act as if they were
zombies–their faces wore a look that said that they were no
longer afraid, because they no longer cared whether they lived
or died. Even when the whips of the toubob lashed them, Ihey
would react only slowly. When they had been scrubbed of their
filth, some were simply unable even to try jumping in their
chains, and the white-haired chief toubob, with a look of worry,
would order the others to permit those men to sit, which they
did with their foreheads between their knees and the thin,
pinkish fluid draining down their raw backs. Then the chief
toubob would force their heads backward and into their
upturned mouths pour some stuff that they would usually choke
up. And some of them fell limply on their sides, unable to
move, and toubob would carry them back into the hold. Even
before these men died, as most of them did, Kunta knew that
in some way they had willed themselves to die. But in
obedience to the Foulah, Kunta and most of the men tried to
keep acting happy as they danced in their chains, although the
effort was like a canker in their souls. It was possible to see,
though, that when the toubob were thus made more relaxed,
fewer whips fell on backs, and the men were allowed to
remain on the sunlit deck for longer periods than before. After
enduring the buckets of seawater and the torture of the
scrubbing brushes, Kunta and the rest of the men sat resting
on their haunches and watched the toubobs’ every move–how
they generally spaced themselves along the rails; how they
usually kept their weapons too close to be grabbed away. No
chained man’s eye missed it whenever any toubob leaned his
gun briefly against the rails. While they sat on the deck,
anticipating the day when they would kill the toubob, Kunta
worried about the big metal thing that showed through the
barricade. He knew that at whatever cost in lives, that weapon
would have to be overwhelmed and taken, for even though he
didn’t know exactly what it was, he knew that it was capable of
some terrible act of destruction, which was of course why the
toubob had placed it there. He worried also about those few
toubob who were always turning the wheel of the big canoe, a
little this way, a. little that way, while staring at a round
brownish metal thing before them. Once, when they were
down in the hold, the alcala spoke his own thought: “If those
toubob are killed, who will run this canoe?” And the Foulah
lead- sr responded that those toubob needed to be taken
alive. “With spears at their throats,” he said, “they will return us
to our land, or they will die.” The very thought that he might
actually see his land, his home, his family once again sent a
shiver down Kunta’s spine. But even if that should happen, he
thought he would have to live to be wry old if he was ever to
forget, even a little bit, that toubob had done to him. There was
yet another fear within Kunta–th? ” bob might have the eyes to
notice how differ the other men danced in their chains on the
deck, for now they were really dancing; they couldn’t help their
movements from showing what was deep in their minds: swift
gestures of hurling off shackles and chains, then clubbing,
strangling, spearing, killing. While they were dancing, Kunta
and the other men would even whoop out hoarsely their
anticipation of slaughter. But to his great relief, when the
dancing ended and he could again contain himself, he saw
that the unsuspecting toubob only grinned with happiness.
Then, one day up on the deck, the chained people suddenly
stood rooted in astonishment and stared–along with the
toubob–at a flight of hundreds of flying fish that filled the air
above the water like silvery birds. Kunta was watching,
dumfounded, when suddenly he heard a scream. Whirling, he
saw the fierce, tattooed Wolof in the act of snatching a metal
stick from a toubob. Swinging it like a club, he sent the
toubob’s brains spraying onto the deck; as other toubob
snapped from their frozen positions of shock, he battered
another to the deck. It was done so swiftly that the Wolof,
bellowing in rage, was clubbing his fifth toubob when the flash
of a long knife lopped off his head cleanly at the shoulders.
His head hit the deck before his body had crumpled down,
and both spurted blood from their stumps. The eyes in the
face were still open, and they looked very surprised. Amid
shoutings of panic, more and more toubob scrambled to the
scene, rushing out of doors and sliding like monkeys down
from among the billowing white cloths. As the women
shrieked, the shackled men huddled together in a circle. The
metal sticks barked flame and smoke; then the big black
barrel exploded with a thunderous roar and a gushing cloud of
heat and smoke just over their heads, and they screamed and
sprawled over each other in horror. From behind the barricade
bolted the chief toubob and his scar-faced mate, both of them
screaming in rage. The huge one struck the nearest toubob a
blow that sent blood spurting from his mouth, then all of the
other toubob were a mass of screaming and shouting as with
their lashes and knives and fire sticks they rushed to herd the
shackled men back toward the opened hatch. Kunta moved;
not feeling the lashes that struck him, still awaiting the
Foulah’s signal to attack. But almost before he realized it, they
ing were below and chained back in their dark places and the
hatch cover had been slammed down. But they were not
alone. In the commotion, a toubob had been trapped down
there with them. He dashed this way and that in the darkness,
stumbling and bumping into the shelves, screaming in terror,
scrambling up when he fell and dashing off again. His
bowlings sounded like some primeval beast’s. “Toubob fa!”
somebody shouted, and other voices joined him: “Toubob fa!
Toubob fa!” they shouted, louder and louder, as more and
more men joined the chorus. It was as if the toubob knew they
meant it for him, and pleading sounds came from him as
Kunta lay silent as if frozen, none of his muscles able to move.
His head was pounding, his body poured out sweat, he was
gasping to breathe. Suddenly the hatch cover was snatched
apen and a dozen toubob came pounding down the stairs into
the dark hold. Some of their whips had slashed down anto the
trapped toubob before he could make them realize he was
one of them. Then, under viciously lashing whips, the men
were again unchained and beaten, kicked back up onto the
deck, where they were made to watch as four toubob with
heavy whips beat and cut into a pulpy mess the headless
body af the Wolof. The chained men’s naked bodies shone
with sweat and blood from their cuts and sores, but scarcely
sound came from among them. Every one of the toubob was
heavily armed now, and murderous rage was upon their faces
as they stood in a surrounding ring, glaring and breathing
heavily. Then the whips lashed down again as the naked men
were beaten back down into the hold and rechained in their
places. For a long while, no one dared even to whisper.
Among the torrent of thoughts and emotions that assailed
Kunta when his terror had subsided enough for him to think at
all was the feeling that he wasn’t alone in admiring the
courage of the Wolof, who had died as a warrior was
supposed to. He remembered his own tingling anticipation
that the Foulah leader would at any instant signal an at- tack–
but that signal hadn’t come. Kunta was bitter, for whatever
might have happened would have been all over now; and why
not die now? What better time was goir>’ to come? Was there
any reason to keep hanging onto here in this stinking
darkness? He wished desperately that he could communicate
as he once did with his shackle- mate, but the Wolof was a
pagan. Mutterings of anger at the Foulah’s failure to act were
cut short by his dramatic message: The attack, he announced,
would come the next time the men on their level of the hold
were on deck being washed and jumping in their chains, when
the toubob seemed most relaxed. “Many among us will die,”
the Foulah said, “as our brother has died for us–but our
brothers below ” will avenge us. ” There was grunting approval
in the murmurings that circulated now. And Kunta lay in the
darkness listening to the raspings of a stolen file rubbing
against chains. He knew for weeks that the file marks had
been carefully covered with filth so that the toubob wouldn’t
see. He lay fixing in his mind the faces of those who turned the
great wheel of the canoe, since their lives were the only ones
to be spared. But during that long night in the hold, Kunta and
the other men began to hear an odd new sound they had
never heard before. It seemed to be coming through the deck
from over their heads. Silence fell rapidly in the hold and,
listening intently, Kunta guessed that stronger winds must be
making the great white cloths flap much harder than usual.
Soon there was another sound, as if rice was falling onto the
deck; he guessed after a while that it must be rain pelting
down. Then he was sure that he heard, unmistakably, the
muffled crack and rumble of heavy thunder. Feet could be
heard pounding on the deck overhead, and the big canoe
began to pitch and shudder. Kunta’s screams were joined by
others’ as each movement up and down, or from side to side,
sent the chained men’s naked shoulders, elbows, and
buttocks–already festered and bleeding–grinding down even
harder against the rough boards beneath them, grating away
still more of the soft, infected skin until the muscles underneath
began rubbing against the boards. The hot, lancing pains that
shot from head to foot almost blacked him out, and it was as if
from afar that he became dimly aware of the sound of water
pouring down into the hold–and of shrieks amid a bedlam of
terror. The water poured more and more rapidly into the hold
until Kunta heard the sound of something heavy, like some
great coarse cloth, being dragged over the deck above.
Moments later, the flood subsided to a trickle–but then Kunta
began to sweat and gag. The toubob had covered the holes
above them to shut out the water, but in so doing they had cut
off all air from the outside, trapping the heat and stench
entirely within the hold. It was beyond tolerance, and the men
began to choke and vomit, rattling their shackles frantically
and screaming in panic. Kunta’s nose, throat, and then his
lungs felt as if they were being stuffed with blazing cotton. He
was gasping for more breath to scream with. Surrounded by
the wild frenzy of ierking chains and suffocating cries, he didn’t
even know it when both his bladder and his bowels released
themselves. Sledgehammer waves crashed on the hull, and
the timbers behind their heads strained against the pegs that
held them together. The choked screams of the men down in
the hold grew louder when the great canoe plunged
sickeningly downward, shuddering as tons of ocean poured
across her. Then, miraculously, she rose again under the
torrential rains that beat down on her like hailstones. As the
next mountainous broadside drove her back down again, and
up again–heeling, rolling, trembling–the noise in the hold
began to abate as more and more of the chained men fainted
and went limp. When Kunta came to, he was up on deck,
amazed to 5nd himself still alive. The orange lights, moving
about, made him think at first they were still below. Then he
took a deep breath and realized it was fresh air. He lay
sprawled on his back, which was exploding with pains so
terrible that he couldn’t stop crying, even in front of the toubob.
He saw them far overhead, ghostly in the moonlight, crawling
along the cross arms of the tall, thick poles; they seemed to
be trying to unroll the great white cloths. Then, turning his
pounding head toward a loud noise, Kunta saw still more
toubob stumbling up through the open hatchway, staggering
as they dragged the limp, shackled forms of naked men up
onto the deck of the sanoe, dumping them down near Kunta
and others already piled up like so many logs. Kunta’s shackle
mate was trembling violently and gagging between moans.
And Kunta’s own gagging wouldn’t stop as he watched the
white-haired chief toubob and the huge scarred one shouting
and cursing at the others, who were slipping and falling in the
vomit underfoot, some of it their own as they continued to drag
up bodies from below. The great canoe was still pitching
heavily, and drenching spray now and then splashed over the
quarterdeck. The chief toubob had difficulty keeping his
balance, now moving hurriedly, as another toubob followed
him with a light. One or the other of them would turn upward
the face of each limp, naked man, and the light would be held
close; the chief toubob would peer closely and sometimes he
would put his fingers on one wrist of that shackled man.
Sometimes, then, cursing bitterly, he would bark an order and
the other toubob would lift and drop the man into the ocean.
Kunta knew these men had died below. He asked himself how
Allah, of whom it was said that He was in all places at all
times, could possibly be here. Then he thought that even to
question such a thing would make him no better than the
pagan shuddering and moaning alongside him. And he turned
his thoughts to prayer for the souls of the men who had been
thrown over the side, joined already with their ancestors. He
envied them.
CHAPTER 39
By the time the dawn came, the weather had calmed and
cleared, but the ship still rolled in heavy swells. Some of the
men who still lay on their backs, or on their sides, showed
almost no signs of life; others were having dreadful
convulsions. But along with most of the other men, Kunta had
managed to get himself into a sitting position that relieved
somewhat the horrible pains in his back and buttocks. He
looked dully at the backs of those nearby; all were bleeding
afresh through blood already dried and clotted, and he saw
what seemed to be bones showing at the shoulders and
elbows. With a vacant look in another direction, he could see
a woman lying with her legs wide apart; her private parts,
turned in his direction, were smudged with some strange
grayish-yellowish paste, and his nose picked up some
indescribable smell that he knew must come from her. Now
and then one of the men who were still lying down would try to
raise himself up. Some would only fall back, but among those
who succeeded in sitting up, Kunta noticed, was the Foulah
leader. He was bleeding heavily, and his expression was of
one who wasn’t part of what was going on around him. Kunta
didn’t recognize many of the other men he saw. He guessed
that they must be from the level below his. These were the
men whom the Foulah had said would avenge the dead from
the first level after the toubob were attacked. The attack.
Kunta didn’t have the strength even to think about it any more.
In some of the faces around him, including that of the man he
was shackled to, Kunta saw that death was etched. Without
knowing why, he was sure they were going to die. The face of
the Wolof was grayish in color, and each time he gasped to
breathe there was a bubbling sound in his nose. Even the
Wolof’s shoulder and elbow bones, which showed through the
raw flesh, had a grayish look. Almost as if he knew that Kunta
was looking at him, the Wolof’s eyes fluttered open and
looked back at Kunta but without a sign of recognition. He
was a pagan, but.. Kunta extended a finger weakly to touch
the Wolof on the arm. But there was no sign of any awareness
of Kunta’s gesture, or of how much it had meant Although his
pains didn’t subside, the warm sun began to make Kunta feel
a little better. He glanced down and saw, in a pool around
where he sat, the blood that had drained from his back and a
shuddering whine forced itself up his throat. Toubob who were
also sick and weak were moving about with brushes and
buckets, scrubbing up vomit and feces, and others were
bringing tubs of filth up from below and dumping it over the
side. In the daylight, Kunta vacantly noted their pale, hairy
skins, and the smallness of their fotos. After a while he
smelled the steam of boiling vinegar and tar through the
gratings as the chief toubob began to move among the
shackled people applying his salve. He would, put a plaster of
cloth smeared with powder wherever the bones showed
through, but seeping blood soon made the plasters slip and
fall off. He also opened some of the men’s mouths–including
Kunta’s–and forced down their throats something from a black
bottle. At sunset, those who were well enough were fed–maize
boiled with red palm oil and served in a small tub they dipped
into with their hands. Then each of them had a scoopful of
water brought by a toubob from a barrel that was kept at the
foot of the biggest of the poles on deck. By the time the stars
came out, they were back below in chains. The emptied
spaces on Kunta’s level, where men had died, were filled with
the sickest of the men from the level below, and their moans of
suffering were even louder than before. For three days Kunta
lay among them in a twilight of pain, vomiting, and fever, his
cries mingled with theirs. He was also among those racked
with fits of deep, hoarse coughing. His neck was hot and
swollen, and his entire body poured with sweat. He came out
of his stupor only once, when he felt the whiskers of a rat brush
along his hip; almost “by reflex his free hand darted out and
trapped the rat’s head and foreparts in its grasp. He couldn’t
believe it. All the rage that had been bottled up in him for so
long flooded down his arm and into his hand. Tighter and
tighter he squeezed–the rat wriggling and squealing
frantically–until he could feel the eyes popping out, the skull
crunching under his thumb. Only then did the strength ebb from
his fingers and the hand open to release the crushed remains.
A day or two later, the chief toubob began to enter the hold
himself, discovering each time–and unchaining–at least one
more lifeless body. Gagging in the stench, with others holding
up lights for him to see by, he applied salve and powder and
forced the neck of his black bottle into the mouths of those still
living. Kunta fought not to scream with pain whenever the
fingers touched the grease to his back or the bottle to his lips.
He also shrank from the touch of those pale hands against his
skin; he would rather have felt the lash. And in the light’s
orange glow, the faces of the toubob had a kind of paleness
without features that he knew would never leave his mind any
more than the stink in which he lay. Lying there in filth and
fever, Kunta didn’t know if they had been down in the belly of
this canoe for two moons or six, or even as long as a rain. The
man who had been lying near the vent through which they had
counted the days was dead now. And there was no longer any
communication among those who had survived. Once when
Kunta came jerking awake from a half sleep, he felt a
nameless terror and sensed that death was near him. Then,
after a while, he realized that he could no longer hear the
familiar wheezing of his shackle mate beside him. It was a
long time before Kunta could bring himself to reach out a hand
and touch the man’s arm. He recoiled in horror, for it was cold
and rigid. Kunta lay shuddering. Pagan or not, he and the
Wolof had talked together, they had lain together. And now he
was alone. When the toubob came down again, bringing the
boiled corn, Kunta cringed as their gagging and muttering
came closer and closer. Then he felt one of them shaking the
body of the Wolof and cursing. Then Kunta heard food being
scraped as usual into his own pan, which was thrust up
between him and the still Wolof, and the toubob moved on
down the shelf. However starved his belly was, Kunta couldn’t
think of eating. After a while two toubob came and unshackled
the Wolof’s ankle and wrist from Kunta’s. Numb with shock, he
listened as the body was dragged and bumped down the
aisle and up the stairs. He wanted to shove himself away from
that vacant space, but the instant he moved, the raking of his
exposed muscles against the boards made him scream in
agony. As he lay still, letting the pain subside, he could hear in
his mind the death waitings of the women of the Wolof s
village, mourning his death. “Tou- bob fa!” he screamed into
the stinking darkness, his cuffed hand jangling the chain of the
Wolof’s empty cuff. The next time he was up on deck, Kunta’s
glance met the gaze of one of the toubob who had beaten him
and the Wolof. For an instant they looked deeply into each
other’s eyes, and though the toubob’s face and eyes tightened
with hatred, this time no whip fell upon Kunta’s back. As Kunta
was recovering from his surprise, he looked across the deck
and for the first time since the storm, saw the women. His
heart sank. Of the original twenty, only twelve remained. But he
felt a pang of relief that all four of the children had survived.
There was no scrubbing this time–the wounds on the men’s
backs were too bad–and they jumped in their chains only
weakly, this time to the beat of the drum alone; the toubob who
had squeezed the wheezing thing was gone. As well as they
could, in their pain, the women who were left sang that quite a
few more toubob had been sewn into white cloths and
dropped overboard. With a great weariness in his face, the
white-haired toubob was moving among the naked people
with his salve and bottle when a man with the empty shackles
of a dead partner dangling from his wrist and ankle bolted
from where he stood and raced to the rail. He had scrambled
halfway over it when one of the nearby toubob managed to
catch up with him and grab the traning chain just as he leaped.
An instant later his body was banging against the side of the
great canoe and the deck was ringing with his strangled
howls. Suddenly, unmistakably, amid the cries, Kunta heard
some toubob words. A hissing rose from the chained men; it
was the other slatee, without question. As the man flailed
against the hull–screeching “Toubob fa!”and then begging for
mercy–the chief toubob went over to the rail and looked down.
After listening for a moment, he abruptly jerked the chain from
the other toubob and let the slatee drop screaming into the
sea. Then, without a word, he went back to greasing and
powdering wounds as if nothing had happened. Though their
whips fell less often, the guards seemed to act terrified of their
prisoners now. Each time the prisoners were brought up on
deck, the toubob ringed them closely, with fire sticks and
knives drawn, as if at any moment the shackled people might
attack. But as far as Kunta was concerned, though he
despised the toubob with all his being, he didn’t care about
killing them any more. He was so sick and weak that he didn’t
even care if he lived or died himself. Up on the deck he would
simply lie down on his side and close his eyes. Soon he would
feel the chief toubob’s hands smearing salve on his back
again. And then, for a while, he would feel nothing but the
warmth of the sun and smell only the fresh ocean breeze, and
the pain would dissolve into a quiet haze of waiting–almost
blissfully–to die and join his ancestors. Occasionally, down in
the hold, Kunta would hear a little murmuring here and there,
and he wondered what they could find to talk about. And what
was the point? His Wolof shackle mate was gone, and death
had taken some of those who had translated for the others.
Besides, it took too much strength to talk any more. Each day
Kunta felt a little worse, and it didn’t help to see what was
happening to some of the other men. Their bowels had begun
to drain out a mixture of clotted blood and thick, grayishyellow,
horribly foul-smelling mucus. When they first smelled
and saw the putrid discharge, the toubob became agitated.
One of them went rushing back up through the hatch, and
minutes later the chief tou- bob descended. Gagging, he
gestured sharply for the other toubob to unshackle the
screaming men and remove them from the hold. More toubob
soon returned with lights, hoes, brushes, and buckets.
Vomiting and gasping curses, they scraped, scrubbed, and
scrubbed again the shelves from which sick men had been
taken away. Then they poured boiling vinegar on those places
and moved the men lying next to those places to other empty
spaces farther away. But nothing helped, for the bloody
contagion–which Kunta heard the toubob call “the flux”–
spread and spread. Soon he too began to writhe with pains in
his head and back, then to roast and shiver with fever and
chills, and finally to feel his insides clenching and squeezing
out the stinking blood and ooze. Feeling as if his entrails were
coming out along with the discharge, Kunta nearly fainted from
the pain. Between screams, he cried out things he could
hardly believe he was uttering: “Omoro–Omar the Second
Caliph, third after Muhammad the Prophet! Kairaba–Kairaba
means peace!” Finally his voice was all but gone from
shrieking and could hardly be heard amid the sobbing of the
others. Within two days, the flux had afflicted nearly every man
in the hold. By now the bloody globs were dripping down off
the shelves into the aisle ways and there was no way for the
toubob to avoid brushing against it or stepping on it–cursing
and vomiting–whenever they went into the hold. Each day now
the men would be taken up on deck while the toubob took
down buckets of vinegar and tar to boil into steam to clean the
hold. Kunta and his mates stumbled up through the hatch and
across to where they would flop down on the deck, which
would soon be fouled with the blood from their backs and the
discharge from their bowels. The smell of the fresh air would
seem to go all through Kunta’s body, from his feet to his head
and then, when they were returned to the hold, the vinegar and
tar smell would do the same, although the smell of it never
killed the stench of the flux. In his delirium, Kunta saw flashing
glimpses of his Grandma Yaisa lying propped up on one arm
on her bed talking to him for the last time, when he was but a
small boy; and he thought of old Grandmother Nyo Boto, and
the stories she would tell when he was back in the first kafo,
about the crocodile who was caught in a trap by the river when
the boy came along to set it free. Moaning and babbling, he
would claw and kick when the toubob came anywhere near
him. Soon most of the men could no longer walk at all, and
toubob had to help them up onto the deck so that the whitehaired
one could apply his useless salve in the light of day.
Every day someone died and was thrown overboard,
including a few more of the women and two of the four
children–as well as several of the toubob themselves. Many of
the surviving toubob were hardly able to drag themselves
around any more, and one manned the big canoe’s wheel
while standing in a tub that would catch his flux mess. The
nights and the days tumbled into one another until one day
Kunta and the few others from below who yet could manage to
drag themselves up the hatch steps stared over the rail with
dull astonishment at a rolling carpet of gold-colored seaweed
floating on the surface of the water as far as they could see.
Kunta knew that the water couldn’t continue forever, and now it
seemed that the big canoe was about to go over the edge of
the world–but he didn’t really care. Deep within himself, he
sensed that he was nearing the end; he was unsure only of by
what means he was going to die. Dimly he noted that the
great white sheets were dropping, no longer full of wind as
they had been. Up among the poles, the toubob were pulling
their maze of ropes to nove the sheets this way and that, trying
to pick up any ittle breeze. From the toubob down on the deck,
they ‘rew up buckets of water and sloshed them against the
real cloths. But still the great canoe remained becalmed, nd
gently it began to roll back and forth upon the swells. All the
toubob were on the edges of their tempers now, he whitehaired
one even shouting at his knife-scarred nate, who
cursed and beat the lesser toubob more than be- ‘ore, and
they in turn fought with each other even more han they had
before. But there were no further heatings >t the shackled
people, except on rare occasions, and they Degan to spend
almost all the daylight hours up on deck. md–to Kunta’s
amazement–they were given a full pint if water every day.
When they were taken up from the hold one morning, he men
saw hundreds of flying fish piled up on the deck. The women
sang that the toubob had set lights out on the ieck the night
before to lure them, and they had flown iboard and floundered
about in vain trying to escape. That light they were boiled with
the maize, and the taste of resh fish startled Kunta with
pleasure. He wolfed the food iown, bones and all. When the
stinging yellow powder was sprinkled next igainst Kunta’s
back, the chief toubob applied a thick cloth aandage against
his right shoulder. Kunta knew that meant us bone had begun
showing through, as was the case with .0 many other men
already, especially the thinner ones, ivho had the least muscle
over their bones. The bandaging nade Kunta’s shoulder hurt
even more than before. But ie hadn’t been back down in the
hold for long before the lee ping blood made the soaked
bandage slip loose. It didn’t natter. Sometimes his mind would
dwell on the horrors he lad been through, or on his deep
loathing of all toubob; sut mostly he just lay in the stinking
darkness, eyes gummy with some yellowish matter, hardly
aware that he was still ilive. He heard other men crying out, or
beseeching Allah to save them, but he neither knew nor cared
who they were. He would drift off into fitful, moaning sleep, with
jumbled ireams of working in the fields back in Juffure, of leafy
green farms, of fish leaping from the glassy surface of the
aolong, of fat antelope haunches roasting over glowing coals,
of gourds of steaming tea sweetened with honey. Then,
drifting again into wakefulness, he sometimes heard himself
mouthing bitter, incoherent threats and begging aloud, against
his will, for a last look at his family. Each of them–Omoro,
Binta, Lamin, Suwadu, Madi–was a stone in his heart. It
tortured him to think that he had caused them grief. Finally he
would wrench his mind away to something else, but it wouldn’t
help. His thoughts would always drift to something like the
drum he had been going to make for himself. He’d think about
how he would have practiced on it at night while guarding the
groundnut fields, where no one could hear his mistakes. But
then he would remember the day he had gone to chop down
the tree trunk for the drum, and it would all come flooding
back. Among the men who were still alive, Kunta was one of
the last who were able to climb down unassisted from their
shelf and up the steps to the deck. But then his wasting legs
began trembling and buckling under him and finally he, too,
had to be half carried and half dragged to the deck. Moaning
quietly, with his head between his knees, rheumy eyes
clamped tight, he sat limply until his turn came to be cleaned.
The toubob now used a large soapy sponge lest a hardbristled
brush do further damage to the men’s gouged and
bleeding backs. But Kunta was still better off than most, who
were able only to lie on their sides, seeming almost as if they
had stopped breathing. Among them all, only the remaining
women and children were reasonably healthy; they hadn’t
been shackled and chained down within the darkness, filth,
stench, lice, fleas, rats, and contagion. The oldest of the
surviving women, one of about Binta’s rains–Mbuto was her
name, a Man- dinka of the village of Kerewan–had such
stateliness and dignity that even in her nakedness it was as if
she wore a robe. The toubob didn’t even stop her from moving
with comforting words among the shackled men lying sick on
the deck, rubbing fevered chests and foreheads. “Mother!
Mother!” Kunta whispered when he felt her soothing hands,
and another man, too weak to speak, just gaped his jaws in
an attempt to smile. Finally, Kunta could no longer even eat
without help. The draining shreds of muscle in his shoulders
and elbows refused to lift his hands enough for him to claw
into the food pan. Often now the feeding was done with the
men up on deck, and one day Kunta’s fingernails were
scrabbling to get up over the edges of the pan when the scarfaced
toubob noticed it. He barked an order at one of the
lesser toubob, who proceeded to force into Kunta’s mouth a
hollow tube and pour the gruel through it. Gagging on the tube,
Kunta gulped and slobbered the food down, then sprawled out
on his belly. The days were growing hotter, and even up on the
deck everyone was sweltering in the still air. But after a few
more days, Kunta began to feel a breath of cooling breeze.
The big cloths up on the tall poles started to snap again and
soon were billowing in the wind. The toubob up above were
springing about like monkeys again, and soon the big canoe
was cutting through the water with froth curling at her bow. The
next morning, more toubob than usual came thudding down
through the hatch, and much earlier than ever before. With
great excitement in their words and movements, they rushed
along the aisles, unchaining the men and hurriedly helping
them upward. Stumbling up through the hatch behind a
number who were ahead of him, Kunta blinked in the earlymorning
light and then saw the other toubob and the women
and children standing at the rails. The toubob were all
laughing, cheering, and gesturing wildly. Between the
scabbed backs of the other men, Kunta squinted and then
saw… Though still blurred in the distance, it was unmistakably
some piece of Allah’s earth. These toubob really did have
some place to, put their feet upon–the land of toubabo doo–
which the ancient forefathers said stretched from the sunrise
to the sunset. Kunta’s whole body shook. The sweat came
popping out and glistened on his forehead. The voyage was
over. He had lived through it all. But his tears soon flooded the
shoreline into a gray, swimming mist, for Kunta knew that
whatever came next was going to be yet worse.
CHAPTER 40
Back down in the darkness of the hold, the chained men were
too afraid to open their mouths. In the silence, Kunta could
hear the ship’s timbers creaking, the muted ssss of the sea
against the hull, and the dull dumpings of toubob feet rushing
about on the deck overhead. Suddenly some Mandinka
began shrieking the praises of Allah, and soon all the others
had joined him–until there was a bedlam of praise and
praying and of chains being rattled with all the strength the
men could muster. Amid the noise, Kunta didn’t hear the hatch
when it scraped open, but the jarring shaft of daylight stilled
his tongue and jerked his head in that direction. Blinking his
eyes to compress the mucus in them, he watched dimly as the
toubob entered with their lanterns and began to herd them–
with unusual haste–back onto the deck. Wielding their longhandled
brushes once again, the toubob ignored the men’s
screams as they scrubbed the encrusted filth from their
festering bodies, and the chief toubob moved down the line
sprinkling his yellow powder. But this time, where the muscles
were rubbed through deeply, he signaled for his big assistant
to apply a black substance with a wide, flat brush. When it
touched Kunta’s raw buttocks, the rocketing pain smashed
him dizzily to the deck. As he lay with his whole body feeling
as if it were on fire, he heard men howling anew in terror, and
snapping his head up, he saw several of the toubob engaged
in what could only be preparing the men to be eaten. Several
of them, in pairs, were pushing first one chained man and then
the next into a kneeling position where he was held while a
third toubob brushed onto his head a white frothing stuff and
then, with a narrow, gleaming thing, raked the hair off his
scalp, leaving blood trickling down across his face. When they
reached Kunta and seized him, he screamed and struggled
with all his might until a heavy kick in the ibs left him gasping
for breath while the skin on his head lumbly felt the frothing
and the scraping. Next the chained Then’s bodies were oiled
until they shone, and then they ere made to step into some
odd loincloth that had two oles the legs went through and that
also covered their rivate parts. Finally, under the close scrutiny
of the chief: oubob, they were chained prostrate along the rails
as the iun reached the center of the sky. Kunta lay numbly, in a
kind of stupor. It came into his amd that when they finally ate
his flesh and sucked the ones, his spirit would already have
escaped to Allah. He as praying silently when barking shouts
from the chief: oubob and his big helper made him open his
eyes in time o watch the lesser toubob dashing up the tall
poles. Only his time their grunts, as they strained at the ropes,
were lixed with excited shouts and laughter. A momeriflater
lost of the great white sheets slackened and crumpled
[ownward. Kunta’s nostrils detected a new smell in the air;
actually, it was a mingling of many smells, most of them
strange and unknown to him. Then he thought he heard new
sounds in the distance, from across the water. Lying on the
deck, with this crusty eyes half shut, he couldn’t tell from
where. But soon the sounds grew closer, and as they did, his
fearful whimperings joined those of his mates. As the sounds
got louder and louder, so did their praying and gibbering–until
finally, in the light wind, Kunta could smell the bodies of many
unfamiliar toubob. Just then the big canoe bumped hard
against something solid and unyielding, and it lurched heavily,
rocking back and forth until, for the first time since they had left
Africa four and a half moons before, it was secured by ropes
and fell still. The chained men sat frozen with terror. Kunta’s
arms were locked around his knees, and his eyes were
clamped shut as if he were paralyzed. For as long as he
could, he held his breath against the sickening waye of smells,
but when something clumped heavily onto the deck, he slit his
eyes open and saw two new toubob stepping down from a
wide plank holding a white cloth over their noses. Moving
briskly, they shook hands with the chief toubob, who was now
all grins, clearly anxious to please them. Kunta silently begged
Allah’s forgiveness and mercy as the toubob began rushing
along the rails unchaining the black men and gesturing with
shouts for them to stand up. When Kunta and his mates
clutched at their chains–not wanting to let go of what had
become almost a part of their bodies–the whips began to
crack, first over their heads, then against their backs. Instantly,
amid screams, they let go of the chains and stumbled to their
feet. Over the side of the big canoe, down on the dock, Kunta
could see dozens of toubob stamping, laughing, pointing in
their excitement, with dozens more running from all directions
to join them. Under the whips, they were driven in a stumbling
single file up over the side and down the sloping plank toward
the waiting mob. Kunta’s knees almost buckled under him as
his feet touched the toubob earth, but other toubob with
cocked whips kept them moving closely alongside the jeering
crowd, their massed smell like the blow of a giant fist in
Kunta’s face. When one black man fell, crying out to Allah, his
chains pulled down the men ahead of and behind him. Whips
lashed them all back up again as the toubob crowd screamed
in excitement. The impulse to dash and escape surged wildly
in Kunta, but the whips kept his chained line moving. They
trudged past toubob riding in extraordinary two-wheeled and
four- wheeled vehicles drawn by huge animals that looked a
little like donkeys; then past a toubob throng milling around in
some kind of marketplace stacked with colorful piles of what
seemed to be fruits and vegetables. Finely clothed toubob
regarded them with expressions of loathing, while more
roughly clad toubob pointed and hooted with enjoyment. One
of the latter, he noticed, was a she toubob, her stringy hair the
color of straw. After seeing the hungry way the toubob on the
great canoe had lusted after black women, he was amazed to
see that the toubob had women of their own; but looking at
this specimen, he could understand why they preferred
Africans. Kunta darted a glance sideways as they passed a
group of toubob screaming crazily around a flurry of two cocks
fighting with each other. And hardly had that din faded behind
them when they came upon a shouting crowd leaping this way
and that to avoid being bowled over by three toubob boys as
they raced and dove after a squealing, filthy swine that looked
shiny with grease. Kunta couldn’t believe his eyes. As if
lightning had struck him, Kunta then glimpsed two black men
who were not from the big canoe–a Man- dinka and a Serere,
there was no doubt. He jerked his head around to stare as
they walked quietly behind a toubob. He and his mates
weren’t alone after all in this terrible land! And if these men
had been allowed to live, perhaps they too would be spared
from the cooking cauldron. Kunta wanted to rush over and
embrace them; but he saw their expressionless faces and the
fear in their downcast eyes. And then his nose picked up their
smell; there was something wrong with it. His mind reeled; he
couldn’t comprehend how black men would docilely follow
behind a tou- bob who wasn’t watching them or even carrying
a weapon, rather than try to run away–or kill him. He didn’t
have time to think about it further, for sudjenly they found
themselves at the open door of a large, square house of
baked mud bricks in oblong shapes with iron bars set into a
few open spaces along the sides. The chained men were
whipped inside the wide door by the toubob guarding it, then
into a large room. Kunta’s feet Felt cool on the floor of hardpacked
earth. In the dim light that came through the two ironbarred
openings, his blinking eyes picked out the forms of five
black men huddled long one wall. They didn’t so much as lift
their heads as the toubob locked the wrists and ankles of
Kunta and his mates in thick iron cuffs attached to short
chains that were bolted to the walls. Along with the others,
Kunta then huddled down himself, with his chin against his
clasped knees, his mind dazed and reeling with all that he had
seen and heard and smelled since they had gotten off the
great canoe. After a little while, another black man entered.
Without looking at anyone, he put down some tins of water
and food before each man and quickly left. Kunta wasn’t
hungry, but his throat was so dry that finally he couldn’t stop
himself from sipping a small amount of the water; it tasted
strange. Numbly he watched through one of the iron-barred
spaces as the daylight faded into darkness. The longer they
sat there, the deeper Kunta sank into a kind of nameless
terror. He felt that he would almost have preferred the dark
hold of the big canoe, for at least he had come to know what
to expect next there. He shrank away whenever a toubob
came into the room during the night; their smell was strange
and overpowering. But he was used to the other smells–
sweat, urine, dirty bodies, the stink as some chained man
went through the agony of relieving his bowels amid the
others’ mingled praying and cursing and moaning and rattling
of their chains. Suddenly all the noises ceased when a toubob
came in carrying a light such as those that had been used on
the big canoe, and behind him, in the soft yellowish glow,
another toubob who was striking with his whip some new
black one who was crying out in what sounded like the toubob
tongue. That one was soon chained, and the two toubob left.
Kunta and his mates remained still, hearing the newcomer’s
sounds of suffering and pain. The dawn was near, Kunta
sensed, when from somewhere there came into his head as
clearly as when he had been in manhood training the high,
sharp voice of the kin- tango: “A man is wise to study and
learn from the animals.” It was so shocking that Kunta sat bolt
upright. Was it finally some message from Allah? What could
be the meaning of learning from the animals–here, now? He
was himself, if anything, like an animal in a trap. His mind
pictured animals he had seen in traps. But sometimes the
animals escaped before they were killed. Which ones were
they? Finally, the answer came to him. The animals he had
known to escape from their traps were those that had not
gone raging around within the trap until they were weakened
to exhaustion; those that escaped had made themselves wait
quietly, conserving their strength until their captors came, and
the animal seized upon their carelessness to explode its
energies in a desperate attack–or more wise- ly–a flight
toward freedom. Kunta felt intensely more alert. It was his first
positive hope since he had plotted with the others to kill the
toubob on the big canoe. His mind fastened upon it now:
escape. He must appear to the toubob to be defeated. He
must not rage or fight yet; he must seem to have given up any
hope. But even if he managed to escape, where would he
run? Where could he hide in this strange land? He knew the
country around Juffure as he knew his own hut, but here he
knew nothing whatever. He didn’t even know if toubob had
forests, or if they did, whether he would find in them the signs
that a hunter would use. Kunta told himself that these
problems would simply have to be met as they came. As the
first streaks of dawn filtered through the barred endows, Kunta
dropped fitfully off to sleep. But no sooner ad he closed his
eyes, it seemed, than he was awakened by the strange black
one bringing containers of water and food. Kunta’s stomach
was clenched with hunger, but the food smelled sickening, and
he turned away. His tongue felt foul and swollen. He tried to
swallow the slime that was in his mouth, and his throat hurt
with the effort. He looked dully about him at his mates from the
big canoe; they all seemed unseeing, unhearing–drawn within
themselves. Kunta turned his head to study the five who were
in the room when they arrived. They wore ragged toubob
clothing. Two of them were of the light brown sasso borro skin
color that the elders had said resulted from some toubob
taking a black woman. Then Kunta looked at the newcomer
who had been brought in during the night; he sat slumped
forward, with dried blood caked in his hair and staining the
toubob garment he wore, and one of his arms hung in an
awkward way that told Kunta it had been broken. More time
passed, and finally Kunta fell asleep again–only to be
awakened once more, this time much later, by the arrival of
another meal. It was some kind of steaming gruel, and it
smelled even worse than the last thing they’d set in front of
him. He shut his eyes not to see it, but when nearly all of his
mates snatched up the containers and began wolfing the stuff
down, he figured it might not be so bad after all. If he was ever
going to escape from this place, thought Kunta, he would
need strength. He would force himself to eat a little bit–but just
a little. Seizing the bowl, he brought it to his open mouth and
gulped and swallowed intil the gruel was gone. Disgusted with
himself, he banged the bowl back down and began to gag, but
he forced it down again. He had to keep the food inside him if
he was going to live. From that day on, three times a day,
Kunta forced himself to eat the hated food. The black one who
brought it same once each day with a bucket, hoe, and shovel
to clean up after them. And once each afternoon, two toubob
came to paint more of the stinging black liquid over the men’s
worst open sores, and sprinkled the yellow powder over the
smaller sores. Kunta despised himself for the weakness that
made him jerk and moan from the pain along with the others.
Through the barred window, Kunta counted finally six daylights
and five nights. The first four nights, he had heard faintly from
somewhere, not far away, the screams of women whom he
recognized from the big canoe. He and his mates had had to
sit there, burning with humiliation at being helpless to defend
their women, let alone themselves. But it was even worse
tonight, for there were no cries from the women. What new
horror had been visited upon them? Nearly every day, one or
more of the strange black men in toubob clothes would be
shoved stumbling into the room and chained. Slumped
against the wall behind them, or curled down on the floor, they
always showed signs of recent heatings, seeming not to know
where they were or to care what might happen to them next.
Then, usually before another day had passed, some
important-acting toubob would enter the room holding a rag
over his nose, and always one of those recent prisoners would
start shrieking with terror as that toubob kicked and shouted
at him; then that black one would be taken away. Whenever he
felt that each bellyful of food had settled, Kunta would try to
make his mind stop thinking in an effort to sleep. Even a few
minutes of rest would blot out for that long a time this
seemingly unending horror, which for whatever reason was the
divine will of Allah. When Kunta couldn’t sleep, which was
most of the time, he would try to force his mind onto things
other than his family or his village, for when he thought of them
he would soon be sobbing.
CHAPTER 41
Just after the seventh morning gruel, two toubob entered the
barred room with an armload of clothes. One frightened man
after another was unchained and shown how to put them on.
One garment covered the waist and legs, a econd the upper
body. When Kunta put them on, his sores–which had begun to
show signs of healing–immediately started itching. In a little
while, he began to hear the sound of voices iutside; quickly it
grew louder and louder. Many toubob were gathering–talking,
laughing–not far beyond the >arred window. Kunta and his
mates sat in their toubob lothes gripped with terror at what
was about to happen–whatever it might be. When the two
toubob returned, they quickly unchained and marched from the
room three of the five black ones who had originally been
there. All of them acted somehow as if this had happened to
them enough times before that it no longer mattered. Then,
within moments, there was a hange in the toubob sounds from
outside; it grew much quieter, and then one toubob began to
shout. Struggling rainly to understand what was being said,
Kunta listened uncomprehendingly to the strange cries: “Fit as
a fiddle! Plenty of spirit in this buck!” And at brief intervals
other toubob would interrupt with loud exclamations: “Three
hundred and fifty!” “Four hundred!” “Five!” And the first toubob
would shout: “Let’s hear six! Look at him! Works like a mule!”
Kunta shuddered with fear, his face running with sweat, breath
tight in his throat. When four toubob came into the room–the
first two plus two others–Kunta felt paralyzed. The new pair of
toubob stood just within the doorway holding short clubs in
one hand and small metal objects in the other. The other two
moved along Kunta’s side of the wall unlocking the iron cuffs.
When anyone cried out or scuffled, he was struck with a short,
thick, leather strap. Even so, when Kunta felt himself touched,
he came up snarling with rage and terror. A blow against his
head made it seem to sxplode; he felt only dimly a jerking at
the chain on his cuffs. When his head began to clear, he was
the first of a ehained line of six men stumbling through a wide
doorway out into the daylight. “Just picked out of the trees!”
The shouting one was standing on a low wooden platform with
hundreds of other toubobs massed before him. As they gaped
and gestured, Kunta’s nose recoiled from the thickness of
their stink. He glimpsed a few black ones among the toubob,
but their faces seemed to be seeing nothing. Two of them
were holding in chains two of the black ones who had just
been brought from the barred room. Now the shouting one
began striding rapidly down the line of Kunta and his
companions, his eyes appraising them from head to foot.
Then he walked back up the line, thrusting the butt of his whip
against their chests and bellies, all the while making his
strange cries: “Bright as monkeys! Can be trained for
anything!” Then back at the end of the line, he prodded Kunta
roughly toward the raised platform. But Kunta couldn’t move,
except to tremble; it was as if his senses had deserted him.
The whip’s butt seared across the scabbing crust of his
ulcerated buttocks; nearly collapsing under the pain, Kunta
stumbled forward, and the toubob clicked the free end of his
chain into an iron thing. “Top prime–young and supple!” the
toubob shouted. Kunta was already so numb with terror that
he hardly noticed as the toubob crowd moved in more closely
around him. Then, with short sticks and whip butts, they were
pushing apart his compressed lips to expose his clenched
teeth, and with their bare hands prodding him all over–under
his armpits, on his back, his chest, his genitals. Then some of
those who had been inspecting Kunta began to step back and
make strange cries. “Three hundred dollars!… three fifty!” The
shouting toubob laughed scornfully. “Five hundred!… six!” He
sounded angry. “This is a choice young niggeri Do I hear
seven fifty?” “Seven fifty!” came a shout. He repeated the cry
several times, then shouted “Eight!” until someone in the
crowd shouted it back. And then, before he had a chance to
speak again, someone else shouted, “Eight fifty!” No other
calls came. The shouting toubob unlocked Kunta’s chain and
jerked him toward a toubob who came stepping forward.
Kunta felt an impulse to make his move right then, but he knew
he would never make it–and any. way, he couldn’t seem to
move his legs. He saw a black one moving forward behind the
toubob to whom the shouter had handed his chain. Kunta’s
eyes entreated this black one, who had distinctly Wolof
features, My Brother, you come from my country…. But the
black one seemed not even to see Kunta as, jerking hard on
the chain so that Kunta came stumbling after him, they began
moving through the crowd. Some of the younger toubob
laughed, jeered, and poked at Kunta with sticks as they
passed, but finally they left them behind and the black one
stopped at a large box sitting up off the ground on four wheels
behind one of those enormous donkey like animals he had
seen on his way here from the big canoe. With an angry
sound, the black one grasped Kunta around the hips and
boosted him up over the side and onto the floor of the box,
where he crumpled into a heap, hearing the free end of his
chain click again into something beneath a raised seat at the
front end of the box behind the animal. Two large sacks of
what smelled like some kind of grain were piled near where
Kunta lay. His eyes were shut tight; he felt as if he never
wanted to see anything again-especially this hated black
slatee. After what seemed a very long time, Kunta’s nose told
him that the toubob had returned. The toubob said something,
and then he and the black one climbed onto the front seat,
which squeaked under their weight. The black one made a
quick sound and flicked a leather thong across the animal’s
back; instantly it began pulling the rolling box ahead. Kunta
was so dazed that for a while he didn’t even hear the chain
locked to his ankle cuff rattling against the floor of the box. He
had no idea how far they had traveled when his next clear
thought came, and he slit his eyes open far enough to study
the chain at close range. Yes, it was smaller than the one that
had bound him on the big canoe; if he collected his strength
and sprang, would this one tear loose from the box? Kunta
raised his eyes carefully to see the backs of the pair who sat
ahead, the toubob sitting stiffly at one end of the plank seat,
the black one slouched at the other end. They both sat staring
ahead as if they were unaware that they were sharing the
same seat. Beneath it–somewhere in shadow–the chain
seemed to be securely fastened; he decided that it was not
yet time to jump. The odor of the grain sacks alongside him
was overpowering, but he could also smell the toubob and his
black driver–and soon he smelled some other black people,
quite nearby. Without making a sound, Kunta inched his
aching body upward against the rough side of the box, but he
was afraid to lift his head over the side, and didn’t see them.
As he lay back down, the toubob turned his head around, and
their eyes met. Kunta felt frozen and weak with fear, but the
toubob showed no expression and turned his back again a
moment later. Emboldened by the toubob’s indifference, he
sat up again–this time a little farther–when he heard a singing
sound in the distance gradually growing louder. Not far ahead
of them he saw a toubob seated on the back of another
animal like the one pulling the rolling box. The toubob held a
coiled whip, and a chain from the animal was linked to the
wrist cuffs of about twenty blacks–or most of them were black,
some brown–walking in a line ahead of him. Kunta blinked
and squinted to see better. Except for two fully clothed women,
they were all men and all bare from the waist up, and they
were singing with deep mournfulness. He listened very
carefully to the words, but they made ‘no sense whatever to
him. As the rolling box slowly passed them, neither the blacks
nor the toubob so much as glanced in their direction, though
they were close enough to touch. Most of their backs, Kunta
saw, were crisscrossed with whip scars, some of them fresh,
and he guessed at some of their tribes: Foulah, Yoruba,
Mauretanian, Wolof, Mandinka. Of those he was more certain
than of the others, most of whom had had the misfortune to
have toubob for fathers. Beyond the blacks, as far as Kunta’s
runny eyes would let him see, there stretched vast fields of
crops growing in different colors. Alongside the road was a
field planted with what he recognized as maize. Just as it was
back in Juffure after the harvest, the stalks were brown and
stripped of ears. Soon afterward, the toubob leaned over, took
some bread and some kind of meat out of a sack beneath the
seat, broke off a piece of each, and set them on the seat
between him and the black one, who picked them up with a tip
of his hat and began to eat. After a few moments the black
one turned in his seat, took a long look at Kunta, who was
watching intently, and offered him a chunk of bread. He could
smell it from where he lay, and the fragrance made his mouth
water, but he turned his head away. The black one shrugged
and popped it into his own mouth. Trying not to think about his
hunger, Kunta looked out over the side of the box and saw, at
the far end of a field, what appeared to be a small cluster of
people bent over, seemingly at work. He thought they must be
black, but they were too far away to be sure. He sniffed the air,
trying to pick up their scent, but couldn’t. As the sun was
setting, the box passed another like it, going in the opposite
direction, with a toubob at the reins and three first-kafo black
children riding behind him. Trudging in chains behind the box
were seven adult blacks, four men wearing ragged clothes
and three women in coarse gowns. Kunta wondered why
these were not also singing; then he saw the deep despair on
their faces as they flashed past. He wondered where toubob
was taking them. As the dusk deepened, small black bats
began squeaking and darting jerkily here and there, just as
they did in Af- rica. Kunta heard the toubob say something to
the black one, and before much longer the box turned off onto
a small road. Kunta sat up and soon, in the distance, saw a
large white house through the trees. His stomach clutched up:
What in the name of Allah was to happen now? Was it here
that he was coming to be eaten? He slumped back down in
the box and lay as if he were lifeless.
CHAPTER 42